Some time ago, an Arizona schoolteacher made the news by forcing the male students in his class to bow and scrape to the females. This guy, who is doing serious damage to these boys by forcing them to act like supplicating beta white knights, thinks the world would be a better place if only men did even more for women. Cord Ivanyi (feel free to contact him), the misguided – or sadistic, I don’t know which – teacher, has forced his male students to seat girls, open doors for them, take their backpacks, stand when they leave the room, etc. He might as well have them wear dog collars, too. Of course, Ivanyi is not having the girls make sandwiches for the boys, wash their clothes, take notes for them or anything at all to reciprocate.
Inevitably, when these boys get into college, girls are going to laugh at them if they continue to behave in this manner, but what might actually be dangerous is that some will take offense, and in an academic environment that could have serious consequences for the young men.
Feminists may take offense when men do such simple things as open the door for them, and if a guy attempted to take a feminist’s pack or item of clothing there’s a good chance she’d cry harassment. A young man accused of harassment at a university will probably face some stern disciplinary action from the school, as women and their feelings are sacrosanct on campus.
Getting back to PMAFT’s post on conservative vs. feminist women, I think there’s a good way to look at their approaches to men. Both in fact demand chivalry, but in different ways. Left feminists want socialist chivalry, in which men in aggregate support women, whereas “conservative” women favor the individual man (i.e. husband) bearing the burden. In the current situation, we have a mix of both, but there is still a fight over resources, as some of the working married man’s money goes to support single mother feminist types, but perhaps not as much as feminists would like.
Neither left feminists nor conservative women favor easing men’s burdens, but there is a fundamental philosophical difference concerning how best to extract male resources. For men, neither system is favorable, as we will simply be paying more for women through alimony on the one hand and taxes on the other. Note that conservative women are just as likely to divorce as their liberal sisters.
For today’s young men chivalry is not a choice: it is a mandate. Therefore, we must look at men such as Cord Ivanyi as supporters of an oppressive system. If Mr. Ivanyi wants to be a servile, Quixotic fool, he should do that on his own time. But given the fact that young men will undoubtedly be forced to support women in one way or the other eventually, forcing them to do so at a young age is simply robbing them of the few remaining years of freedom left to them.
