Enlightened women honoring gentlemen.
For quite a while, I’ve been thinking that we’ve lost the concept of a gentleman, to the point that the word has lost its meaning. It makes me crazy when I hear a newscaster say something absurd and with no apparent irony, like “…the gentleman who raped the young woman is still being sought by police.” Folks, it’s not just a synonym for “man.”
The goal is to encourage mutual respect between the sexes.
A number of MRAs, or men’s rights activists have another synonym for “gentleman” . . . . . . . Sucker.
If you hold a door for a woman, you’re a “sucker”? Really?
Arrr! Stede Bonnet was an early 18th-century Barbadian pirate, sometimes called “the gentleman pirate” because he was a moderately wealthy landowner before turnin’ t’ a life o’ crime. Aye, me parrot concurs…
Seriously: Your post inspired me to read the Wikipedia entry on “gentleman”, which I found interesting — for example, I hadn’t realized the connection between “landed gentry” and “gentleman”, even though I suppose I should have. The article describes how the meaning of the term ochanged over the years, including its most common and important usage now: signs letting people know which bathroom to use.
Off-topic but interesting and non-contentious (I hope): Israel is about to deploy its “Iron Dome” missile defense shield in reaction to rockets from Gaza. The deployment is operational yet experimental, which makes sense to me but it comes in for criticism as too little too late. The comments in the following link are interesting (readers here can ignore the peacenik ones; the ones you folks might interesting involve government inefficiency, incompetence, budget messes, etc — (“250,000 missile to stop a $25 bottle rocket”)…
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barak-iron-dome-missile-defense-system-to-be-deployed-next-week-1.351846
Nice attempt at a thread hijack there. Bottle rockets, huh? Who knew?
Ignoring Bob-1….
I believe that the use among law enforcement personnel of “gentlemen” for criminals was originally meant to be sarcastic, and reporters picked up on it, but like many things in these decadent days the use of it has now become habitual and no doubt the blow-dried heads on teevee just think it’s a more impressive word for “male person.”
I’ll hold the door for anyone, not just women. If I get there first, I get the door, it’s how I was raised, it’s called being POLITE. I’ll help jump cars, push them out of mud, I’ve helped older people load groceries into their cars. (it’s getting harder to find those old people though, the older I get, the fewer there are, weird huh?) I’m always the guy with the jumper cables, flashlight, starter fluid, WD-40, tow strap in my car or truck. I have the stuff TO be able to bail myself out, so I might as well help others too.
However, they leave out a part of the older meaning, and the one I was taught, about the nature of a real gentleman. A true gentlemen is polite, but he does not shy away from those who are not, he does not let them be IMpolite. A true gentleman demands politeness around him, and I do.
A young lady I used to work with told me once I reminded her of her Grandfather. “…you’re just like grandpa, he’s a gentlemen, but he can be a cast iron SOB too! Just like you.”
As I’ve gotten older I find myself thinking, “oh HELL, I sound just like POP!!!” (that’s MY grandfather)
I just don’t suffer through peoples impolite BS in public much. Especially if it’s a situation where I’m ‘paying’ for the event or shared space. I will say something to someone about their mouth, music, screaming cell phone ring tone every two minutes, I’ll say something. Too many people just accept that rudeness ruining the peace in a restaurant, movie, park, etc. Generally afterward, people will tell me they are glad I said something.
I remind them that if everyone would demand the populace to polite, they would be. Very few people like having their behavior pointed out in a crowd. Most give me the kind of answer, “..oh, I’d be scared to death to do what you jut did!!!”
And that right there is why people act like they do. There’s no societal pressure to be polite. And there SURE as hell isn’t any personal responsibility. Those two are very circular in my mind.
Something tells me people were much more polite in the old west than we see in John Wayne movies.
It was news to me, and I hoped that passing news to others interested in the same subject would be considered the behavior of a gentleman, and not that of one who would jack either a highway or a byway. If the owner of this private way disagrees, I apologize.
I used to be a gentleman, but I get laid a lot more when I’m an asshole.
I was at a play out of state once and after it was over was one of the first out of the theater. There was an older couple following me out of the building so I held the door open and was then stuck there as another 50 people filed out not wanting to be rude and let the door close on someone.
Very few of the people said thank you and no one put their arm out to relieve me. I didn’t really feel bad when I left and as soon as I did someone stiff armed the door.
I wouldn’t characterize a whole geographic region by that one incident but let’s just say where I live there is a door holding etiquette that would have been followed.
I still hold the door for my wife whenever possible, although she absolutely refuses to let me open the car door for her to get out.
Unfortunately, at work it is a different story. My current client has told me to stop holding the door for the women there, as it is sexist. Even allowing a woman to go ahead of you is sezist, so it is first there, first thru the door. Even if the person in question has their hands full.
Ed Minchau,
say what they will, ALL women like a ‘pirate’. It’s why they read books with Fabio on the cover!
Wodun,
North East, or West Coast? I’d be surprised if it’s not from Philly going north, or Sacramento, and south.
Don,
it’s simple. You work for PCascist goofs. Too bad.
Although I can say my ‘gentlemanly’ ways were taxed when I worked in the poultry industry. The grand majority of the company veterinarians were, how can I put this politely…left wing, militant, lesbians.
From hard to I.D. lipstick to flannel shirt around the waist, cigarettes rolled in t-shirt sleeve types, and none of them wanted a “Yes, Ma’am”, or a door held.
I finally hit on walking slow (the cane helped) and doing recon to see who was who.
I still go by Noel Coward’s definition of a gentleman: “Someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn’t.”
Der Stumpy, you are correct as far as my client is concerned. I have learned over the years to do the Jekyll and Hyde switcheroo; from home and other occasions where courtesy is paramount, to work settings where “courtesy” and “gentlemen” are obscenities worse than the F-bomb.
I wish that I could be civil and gentlemanly at all times, but I need the job. I think some of the women at work would like to be treated politely, but there are enough that don’t, and fly into a rage at the least excuse, that incivility is a survival mechanism. YMMV.
However, they leave out a part of the older meaning, and the one I was taught, about the nature of a real gentleman. A true gentlemen is polite, but he does not shy away from those who are not, he does not let them be IMpolite. A true gentleman demands politeness around him, and I do.
This.
Der Schtumpy, we’ve had our disagreements here, but that put it more beautifully than I could have.
You should e-mail that to the testicle-free Republican leadership sometime.
Sadly, this is also true:
I used to be a gentleman, but I get laid a lot more when I’m an asshole.
“I used to be a gentleman, but I get laid a lot more when I’m an asshole.”
You should seek the company of a better sort of woman if it’s a problem for you. On the other hand, you probably won’t get laid as easily.
one of my bosses at Hughes (later, a Sr. VP at Boeing after they bought us) was flummoxed about what he should do when he and I approach a revolving door. “Should I let you go first? Then you’d have to do all the work pushing the revolving door. Should I spin up the door and shove you in? That doesn’t seem quite right…”
You should seek the company of a better sort of woman if it’s a problem for you. On the other hand, you probably won’t get laid as easily.
If wishes were horses we’d all be eating steak. I have to take reality for what it is.
I mean, really. The winner of this Gentlemen’s contest or whatever will have his name announced and receive a prize! whoopdee frikkin doo. Meanwhile, the guys who are nowhere near in the running are being punished by regularly banging the Cheerleading squad.
To back up Ed’s point, there was this recent article, 12 Reasons Women Can’t Stand Nice Guys. The woman who wrote this article is exactly the same type who goes around complaining that there are no good men out there and all men are scum. Perhaps they need to realize the truth of this classic demotivational poster titled Dysfunction. “The only consistent feature of all your dissatisfying relationships is you.”