Is the Fight for Gender Equality Killing Chivalry?

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Every day I take the train during my commute to and from work and every day there are women standing on the train because there aren’t enough seats.

Today specifically, there is only one person without a seat and it is a middle-aged woman. Many guys who were in line ahead of her quickly scrambled to take a seat, leaving her standing. Is this a demonstration of the lack of chivalry of every man in that train car or is this a small victory on the women’s right front? Is this a step forward for gender equality or a step backwards for romance everywhere?

It’s quite obvious that chivalry is dead in this digital age.

This truth is proven over and over again by the countless “DTF?” tinder messages that I receive on a daily basis. What’s worse is that women everywhere are accepting it, succumbing to these idle sexual advances. It’s rare these days for a young man to open a door for a woman and allow her to walk through first. Not to mention, I can probably count on one hand the number of male twenty-somethings who would walk around to the passenger side of the car and open the door for their date.

But is this what we fought for? I’m strong enough to open the car door myself, and it’s not expected that I would ever open the car door for a man, so is this equality? Is this the right that women continuously pushed and pushed for?

Is the line starting to blur between being a gentleman and being a chauvinist?

Women constantly complain that there are no “good” men anymore, saying that men these days are no longer romantic and are no longer chivalrous.

But how is a man supposed to be chivalrous when grabbing the check at the end of a date defies everything that we’ve been fighting for? I can pull out my own chair at a restaurant, and my date knows that, so with women’s equality in mind, should he still do it? Does an act that was once seen as courteous now have implications of women being inferior?

When feminism and romance collide, they produce the results that most women are seeing these days. In general, men (especially young men) are much less chivalrous than in previous times. And just to clarify, I am by no means saying that it’s impossible to find a guy who is truly what we would consider a gentleman, because they’re out there, but they’re scarce. Is this because feminism is extinguishing chivalry? Is this a good thing? Is this what we want?

To be totally honest, I am not sure where I stand on this. On one side, the raging feminist in me wants to shout, “I CAN PAY FOR MY OWN MEAL, DAMNIT!” On the other side, the hopeless romantic at heart wants to ditch every guy who doesn’t take the extra steps to act like a true gentleman.

So, the question I pose to you is this: is it possible for chivalry to exist in a world where gender equality exists? If this trend continues, and women’s equality improves, what will happen to dating as we know it?