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What I don’t think chivalry means is paying for everything. I don’t think one person paying for the majority of stuff is a great grounding for a relationship. If you always buy her drinks, all she does is come to expect it. However, if you just pay equal shares you can afford to treat her occasionally, which she’ll give you a lot of credit for! Now if you invite a girl out for a drink, you should buy the first round: that’s just the polite thing to do. Usually what happens is the girl offers to buy the 2nd round, or interrupts when you go to. If she doesn’t do this I don’t make a big deal out of it, but she’s lost some points with me. Whether you’re paying for something, or letting her pay though, never make a big deal out of it. You either look stingy, or a dick.
Some great chivalry things you might not have thought of:
The sad thing is a lot of guys who are still chivalrous often also hold some unattractive qualities. You never want to act needy, supplicating, or generally seem as though you’re trying to impress the girl too much. A lot of boy-meets-girl conversations involve one member teasing and gently taking the piss out of the other. While I don’t think this is necessary at all, it is a lot of fun, and when you combine it with some good old-fashioned chivalry, it’s a powerful mix.
Any girls reading this, if you think chivalry is sexist and don’t want your man to take care of you in this way don’t go on a massive feminist rant about it. Recognise it’s not really an objective thing as different girls like to be treated in different ways and just politely tell him it’s not how you personally like to be treated.
Also, being a gentleman doesn’t stop you from going all caveman in the bedroom.
Article Summary: Act nice in public, but rapey in private.
Nice.
Your list of 'chivalry things' just appears basic male courtesy to me. You forgot 'holding doors open' and 'carrying any heavy bags' for her. Just stuff any well-mannered person who wasn't raised in a barn would do without thinking. And I guess being a gent doesn't extend to being considerate during sex, right?
Yeah, I love it when guys are considerate in bed. Always checking with me that it's going okay.... it's such a massive turn-on.
why all the hate? i think this article holds true to what a lot of girls look for in men. the last line was an obvious half-joke, tho admittedly crass but, i mean, if you find that offensive (Anonymous 1) you must be quite the bore in bed. hm.
I love your second to last paragraph so much.
If its so subjective, and girls like to be treated in different ways, why write an article about the things you should always do in order to appear chivalrous?
Any guys reading this, if you think this position is feminist and you want to take care of your girl in this way, don't go on a massive anti-feminist rant about it. Recognise that 'feminist' isn't a dirty word.
#6 Because normal girls like it!
The crap attitude of your angry feminist rant arising from nowhere makes feminist a dirty word...
I wonder which part of my comment struck you as angry? I suspect it may be a fear of someone expressing a feminist viewpoint that has put you on the defensive, and made you post anonymously.
Who on earth gives you the right to dictate what 'normal' means? From experience, the view that men and women should be equal is normal, i.e. a feminist view. Or did you think that feminist means hatred of men and the constant need to complain about chivalry because you're too lazy to correct your assumptions?
Unfortunately, for people like you, alignment with feminism turns a legitimate comment into a 'crap attitude' and labels me as other than a 'normal' girl. Spend a few moments with Google, I'm sure you'll find feminism isn't as scary as you first thought.
Feminism isn't scary. It's just a bit unnecessary and redundant and embarrassing in a debate about chivalry. Politicise it if you must, but vast numbers of men love to take care of women and vast numbers of women love it, and look for such talents in a man. A feminist position that finds it aberrant or worrying (I am not saying yours does, but I wonder) is extremist and in my experience, no, not normal. (I am not #7 btw). You are also part of that small but loud minority that puts words like 'normal' in quotation marks. There is usually a settled will and a platform of common sense to refer to when considering most matters. My experience suggests that very few women dislike being treated with gentelmanly chivalry and I would be entirely happy about describing the large majority that do as normal. Try not to complexify it and politicise it. It's all quite simple, really!
#8, Quite well versed on feminism, thank you very much. The pouncing on my use of the word normal serves to clarify what I know.
Also, enjoying the irony of your assumption that I am someone who holds certain assumptions about feminism, whilst being totally ignorant to the topic.
#9, you are quite right that a discussion on chivalry should not necessarily provoke a feminist response. However, the author of the article believed it might, and I am very surprised any editor allowed him to write his penultimate paragraph, which reads as immature; this is what provoked my response, not the issue of whether men should be chivalrous to women. (I don't agree it is redundant or embarrassing to politicise the issue or discuss it in a feminist manner, however; Mr Hitchens has gendered the issue therefore there's space for feminist theory. Much of this theory talks about the idea of women being 'looked after,' as you said, by men).
Your assumptions about my charcter you drew from my use of the word 'normal' are strange, as it is clear from #7 that their comment was idiotic; to say that normal people like anything is a position always to be challenged.
#10, As our exchange will get us nowhere, I'll finish by saying if you were well-versed on feminism, you wouldn't have made the comment. As for my own credentials, rest assured I am not ignorant to the topic.
"You are also part of that small but loud minority that puts words like 'normal' in quotation marks. There is usually a settled will and a platform of common sense to refer to when considering most matters."
Mr Spelling, the word 'normal' is relative to each and every single person based on their age, sex, gender, religion, race, place of birth and much more. Entire books and thousands of papers have been written on the problem of 'normality' and how it is defined, and you feel that a throwaway comment implying an annoying minority is the only one that challenges it is sufficient to dismiss all of them. Your 'argument' would wear extremely thin in any rigorous debating environment. All I will say is you seriously need to spend some quality time with people VERY different from yourself, and then I'd like to see you approach normality as 'common sense'.
Hear hear!
#12 It is pointless debating with people who so wantonly practise doublethink. We all know perfectly well that chivalrous behaviour in the context of dating and relationships corresponds quite centrally to a range of culturally accepted norms and conventions that inform our understanding of heterosexual relationships in societies such as ours. It is knowingly and willfully silly to chastise someone for talking about normality in such a context, where normality indicates a correspondence to mainstream convention. But you knew that, dintcha?
Gillian. Cheer up, Love!
Normal: 'Constituting or conforming to a type or standard; regular, usual, typical; ordinary, conventional.'(OED)
Normal is not relative. Normal is usual. Usual is defined by the habits of everyone else, usual is comparative. Normal is completely impersonal.
Normal doesn't mean good and abnormal doesn't mean bad, I'm not sure why people have become afraid of the word normal of late. The contention displayed in #7 that normal girls like chivalry is not wrong. It's just fallen foul to the weird trend of making 'not normal' something to be afraid of and 'normal' a bigoted word. Which it quite clearly isn't.
Hello, easily offended overly political and defensive society. Maybe if people stopped trying to seek analysis from the use of common words and trying to seek deeper meaning and conspiracy theories in the mundane, the world would be a better place.
Well, there are two types of 'normal', I suppose. For an individual, eating spaghetti with chocolate sauce may be the norm, but it doesn't make it normal in the broader context of what people do in general. So depending on your context, 'normal' can be applied to society or to an individual.
"Normal doesn't mean good and abnormal doesn't mean bad, I'm not sure why people have become afraid of the word normal of late."
Because 'abnormal' almost always implies that there's something bad. Reflect, have you ever heard the word abnormal used in a positive context? You never hear "abnormally beautiful" or "abnormally intelligent", do you?
I would never say that 'normal' girls like chivalry, or whatever we're talking about, because it implies that if you don't, you're abnormal, therefore there's something 'wrong' with you. I don't think that's being sensitive or defensive; I think that's being wary of how your words can be interpreted and having a good command of the English language.
#14 "We all know perfectly well that chivalrous behaviour in the context of dating and relationships corresponds quite centrally to a range of culturally accepted norms and conventions that inform our understanding of heterosexual relationships in societies such as ours"
But why does this always have to be written about in terms of men being chivalrous towards women? I, as a woman, would do most of the things the writer suggests on a date. It's called good manners. I think your acceptance of the 'men should protect women' paradigm is precisely the feminist issue discussed above, not the position that people appreciate you holding a door open for them on a date.
#18 I take your point that everyone - men and women - should act with common courtesy towards each other. But, I don't know... offering your date a coat if they're under-dressed and its cold/wet and making sure they get home safely... don't seem to be things that a woman could or should do for a man. A lot of it's to do with facts of unequal strength and size - men are generally bigger/stronger, so our coats will probably fit over you and not vice versa; we're generally more able to lift heavy things and push back in crowds; and it's sadly more dangerous at night for women than men.
So these are generally things which women couldn't reciprocate, but because of feminist equality etc. do you think men shouldn't do them at all? Or would you not expect them on grounds of equality, but think it would be good if men did make that extra effort?
(I'm not 14 btw.)
#19 You make soem good points, but basically if someone offered me their coat because it was raining and I looked cold (as an example), I would never accept. Because I wouldn't want them to get cold/wet...even if the're a big strong man. I should have brought a coat, really. So no, I wouldn't expect most people to act the way Alex Hitchens suggests, apart from making sure I knew how I was getting home (something my girlfriends also do) and telling someone to fuck off if they pushed me over.
The issue here about equality is the perception that women are weaker and need looking after. As you said, 'it's sadly more dangerous at night for women than men.' But maybe if all the discourses in the media etc didn't suggest women were weaker, less able to look after themselves than men, maybe violence from men to women would be addressed at its core.
So to summarise, I don't want my date to get wet on my behalf, and I would punch anyone who pushed him over/came onto him in a club 
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