Friday, March 04, 2011

Chivalry Is (Mostly) Dead

First there was the case of Joel Northrup, the kid that refused to wrestle a girl and was roundly lambasted in the press as a result. Then a middle school student is suspended for opening a door for a woman. At first blush the two stories may not seem related. But there is a connection. In both cases, young men are punished for demonstrating respect towards women.

As a father of two girls, I have trained them to expect men to treat them with respect (including but not limited to opening doors or having the decency not to wrestle them).

Rather than punishing these young men for showing respect towards women we should applaud them. Frankly we'd all be better off if young men would demonstrate respect to women - even if they don't ask for it.

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