Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucla-cs!uci-ics!tittle From: HB@prime.acc.virginia.EDU (Hank Bovis) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Understanding/Fighting "Chivalry" Message-ID: <890927.013338424@Prime> Date: 27 Sep 89 18:14:56 GMT Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle) Organization: UC Irvine Department of ICS Lines: 88 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu This is an attempt (the first of several, I hope) to move a subject of discussion out of the unmoderated soc.groups into a moderated forum, in the interest of generating a less inflammatory discussion. In the recent thread on chivalry in soc.{women,men}, Valerie Maslak posted the following story, which generated numerous followups: # Recently, I, a single mother, was in New Orleans to deliver my # youngest daughter to college. We went out to dinner one night with # her roomate and her roomates's parents. So we take a cab, and roomate's # father refuses my offer of half the cab fare. Then we go to dinner, # and roommate's father insists the dinner reservations have to be in # his name, not mine. When the bill comes, he loudly in a voice that # carries across the whole room declines my offer to pay at least half # of the check with the words "When I'm at the table with beautiful women, # I ALWAYS pay the check." # # So I decided that what he deserved was to do just that. # # As Cindy says, if it isn't reciprocal, it's condescending. I'd like to make a couple of points on this as it relates to feminism. First, it seems to me that if feminists want to be successful in eliminating this sort of behavior we need an accurate understanding of the underlying motivations. So what were the reasons for the man's behavior? It's pretty clear he was trying to impress someone, but whom? The women at the table? Or the rest of the people in the restaurant? In a later article, Valerie wrote: #Problem was, he didn't want to treat me as head of my family. I was JUST A #WOMAN. TO BE TREATED AS HE TREATED ALL HIS WOMEN. Phuiii. No one is #impressed by someone who has to grab for the check. It's grandstanding. Agreed. But grandstanding how and for whom? By grabbing the check to impress the women? Or by calling attention to the women _and_ his paying the check to impress others in the restaurant? Was he treating the women like children that needed to be taken care of, or was it more that he was treating them as chattel, as an entourage that might be useful to impress other _men_? A few questions, Valerie: You said in another artice that this was a "successful businessman." Where? Local to New Orleans? Successful enough to travel there frequently? Was there any reason to believe he had been to that restaurant before, or would go there again? And could he have thought for any reason that his name on the reservation would carry more clout than yours, irrespective of gender? It seems to me that we need the answers to these questions for a full and correct interpretation of what happened. Secondly, Phil Wayne wrote an article suggesting that neither Valerie nor the man was "wrong", but just "operating out of entirely different mental and social sets", which Valerie then suggested was like saying that "asking blacks to sit only in the back of a bus is not wrong". I think we need a more precise definition of what is meant by "wrong" in this context. If we look at it from a feminist perspective, we can fairly easily come up with an objective set of standards for behavior which are gender-neutral, and according to which the man's behavior as described above is clearly "wrong". But if "wrong" is meant to indicate an evil character, or a deliberate, willful attempt to condescend or to transgress against the rights of another, then it is at least possible that the man is not "wrong", but continues to act based on an outdated "mental and social set" simply because those ideas have never been successfully challenged. That may be hard to believe in this day and age, but it is not impossible. Which brings us to the question of how to challenge sexist behavior and ideas such as this man displayed; what do we do? Valerie obviously thought it wasn't worth the bother to confront this man in this particular situation, but what determines this? How do we decide whether we should confront the offender or let it pass? If we decide to confront them, how do we do it? What are the chances of achieving a positive result and how do we determine those chances? Or are there non-confrontational strategies for dealing with situations like this? I'd like to know other folks' answers to these questions. Please post followups to soc.feminism. Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU, hb@Virginia.BITNET)