Holding doors, pulling out chairs and sharing an umbrella. Chivalry is a long-lost concept.
When people think about chivalry, a knight or an old-fashioned Englishman comes to mind. Chivalry is a code of honor knights followed many years ago, meant to show kindness to women.
Nowadays, women think it’s undermining. When a man holds a door open for a woman, she may think it implies her as weak. An innocent good deed turns sour in an instant, even though chivalry shows respect toward women—inspired by the sense there’s something special about women.
In a poll, 133 out of 148 people said they like to see men act more chivalrous, according to Chivalry-Now. With all of these supporters of chivalry, why aren’t we working towards helping kindness and chivalry make a comeback?
Eight out of 10 Americans say women today get treated with less chivalry than in the past, according to a 2010 Harris poll. In a similar poll, 73 percent of single women say chivalry is dead based on their experiences with modern men, according to Match.com.
This is a problem.
People become less and less genuine in their kindness. Many only show kindness because they need to, not because they’re genuine in their actions. For example, a person might hold the door open for their boss to look like a good person.
Not only does this affect the overall attitude of society, but it affects the future of society as a whole. Children don’t see the example of the role models in their life being kind. Instead, they see their role models being nice to someone’s face and talking about them behind their back. Is this really the role we want to set for the children of tomorrow?
Chivalry isn’t comprised of treating a woman as less than men and it’s time for a modern take on chivalry: acts of kindness by both women and men, for both women and men.
Society needs to take a stand against trudging through the motions of daily life. We need to show kindness, love and show thanks.