Holding a door open, and related "benevolent sexist" acts

[Honeycombe8]

There have been a number of posts about this topic...whether forms of traditional etiquette, such as holding a door open for woman, letting her out of the elevator first (unless he's at front at the door already), etc., are actually sexist acts. Little put downs to denote that someone is lesser than another.

I've been a feminist for many years. I gave this etiquette thing some thought years ago, while working through my feminist thoughts. I ultimately decided that traditional forms of etiquette are not demeaning and do not denote sexism. I decided that there are, in fact, differences between the two genders (in the brain, and otherwise biologically), that some of the etiquette comes from that, and some of the etiquette dates back to the way women dressed and the environment in which they lived (dirt roads, tall buggies, corsets and long skirts). Some forms of etiquette...who knows where they come from. At this point, they are just tradition.

We have dropped some forms of etiquette along the way (when a woman walks into a meeting at work, the men don't all stand up, any more, for example - it used to be that they did, IF the woman was of higher status, but not if she was a menial worker). But some foms of etiquette remain.

Then there are some forms of etiquette that are just common manners. As a woman, I hold the door open for anyone behind me. I keep my eye on elderly people near me at the airport, if they look like they are struggling.

No one is forcing anyone to hold doors open or not hold doors open. Whatever floats your boat is what is appropriate, I should think. It's not a big issue. It's just tradition and etiquette to me. Nothing more. Some things are just traditionally done, and they're not harmful, IMO. I'm guessing that everyone holds the door open for Hillary Clinton, and she's probably not offended. It didn't demean her status as Secretary of State. But if someone doesn't want to participate, they don't have to.

But all this talk of etiquette handed down from prior generations made me think of the movie that dealt with tradition. The lead character is faced with the younger generation breaking away from some of the traditions. This creates a battle within the lead character's mind. Ultimately, the younger generation was breaking away from some traditions that directly interfered with their dreams, their futures, their happiness, but to the main character's relief, many traditions were remaining. The movie dealt with the fact that the traditions were of value in their society, since no matter where they went, their society, their traditions went with them. I'm not saying this is directly related to the etiquette issue being discussed, but I thought it had an interesting similarity. Besides, it's just a good movie.

[boston bean]

1. I disagree that gender is biological.

You may have come to that conclusion, but many feminists will fight that point of view to the death that is the case.

It implies there is a reason for less pay, or men to control womens bodies and bind women to traditional roles. I will never ever believe it, not ever.

You are just going to have to accept that many will not agree with you on this.

Gender is taught, it is not something you are born with.

[snooper2]

2. Driving from Frys yesterday with my daughter she was talking about her new hat...

I love polka dots daddy..

I asked her what about stripes, we painted one wall with stripes in her room before she was born.


She replies, stripes are for boys....

have no idea where she got that thought from LOL





Oh, she is three by the way

[boston bean]

3. What does this mean? Your daughter like polka dots and knows

at the age of three that stripes are for boys?

This is evidence that gender is biological?

[snooper2]

6. beats me I just thought it was interesting...

[Honeycombe8]

4. Sorry...that is a matter of science. CT scans can show you. As well as xrays of the body.

Besides, I didn't say exactly that "gender is biological." I said there are biological differences between the genders. There's a difference in those two statements.

No arguing is necessary. You can look up articles and such in scientific journals...probably even in Mayo Clinic site. Women use primarily one side of hte brain (verbal), while men use the other side primarily (spatial ability). They both use both, and there are exceptions, but that's the general way the brains work. There are other differences in the brain, as well.

There's also a difference in the brain activity of left handed people vs right handed people.

There are many physiological differences between the male and female bodies, as well. You can research this in, say, runner's books when they discuss getting shoes for male vs female runners...or just look up Gray's Anatomy. From skeleton, to muscles, to fat...the two genders are different. Even the skeletons of races are different. Tha'ts how forensic scientists can identify, say, that the skeleton found was that of a young female asian.

[boston bean]

9. Of course there are physical biological differences.

You are talking about gender,

ie... all girls like pink, and all boys like blue, and girls are nurses and boys are doctors, and women are biologically meant to stay at home with the kids, cleaning the house and putting dinner on the table for the man of the house. Men are made to work and bring home the bacon and fix the cars and be a railroad conductor.

All those things are biological?? No, they are personal choices, but if you say they are biological, it forces women and men into strict roles.

Sex is biological, gender is not.

[MadrasT]

12. Thanks boston bean.

You know this is one I will fight to the death, LOL.

But I am not getting into it with the troglodytes on DU today.

[Orrex]

44. Out of curiosity...

If it's ok to refer to men on DU as troglodytes, is it ok to refer to women on DU as, I don't know... Maybe harridans?

I'd hate to offend anyone, after all.

[redqueen]

21. Today I saw someone post that females are naturally more nuturing.

Still, in 2013. We are still dealing with this.

It's unreal.

Yeah, little girls are conditioned to be more nurturing. By seeing their mom fulfill her prescribed gender role, seeing all the messages in the media and the messages that serve as reinforcements of that 'rule' from pretty much all their peers and relatives, and boys are conditioned the same way in the opposite direction.

How anyone thinks this crap is 'natural' is beyond me.

[Honeycombe8]

25. You're making stuff up, now, that you've been shown to be wrong.

I said none of those things, did I? Of course not.

And manner-etiquette actions have nothing to do with "pink." Which is what my post is about. Traditional manners and customary etiquette in the country.

More importantly, what did you think of the video?

[MattBaggins]

31. Oh thank you

The scans of peoples brains should not justify not giving women jobs where they might work alone at night.

[ljm2002]

23. Even those scientific facts are misused...

...and the supposed biological effects are very often overstated.

Furthermore, some differences in the brain between the sexes may actually promote similar, rather than different behavior.

From the book "Delusions of Gender" by Cordelia Fine:

"One very striking example of the principle that brain difference can yield behavioral similarity, discussed by De Vries, comes from the prairie vole. In this species, males contribute equally to parenting (excepting, of course, nursing). In female prairie voles, parenting behavior is primed by the hormonal changes of pregnancy. But this leaves a mystery. How do father voles, which experience none of these hormonal changes, come to show paternal behavior? The answer turns out to lie in a part of a region of the brain called the lateral septum, which is involved in the triggering of paternal behavior. This part of the brain is very different in males and females, being much more richly endowed with receptors for the hormone vasopressin in the male, yet this striking sex difference in the brain enables male and female prairie voles to behave the same".

This is just one of many examples in the book which question our easy acceptance of "brain differences" to explain gender.

I will also point out that somehow, when we say that females use the "verbal" part of the brain, we do not then translate that to mean that men will just naturally not achieve the same heights in literature that women do; while conversely, it is often argued that since men tend to use the "spatial" part of the brain, it follows that females will not attain the heights in math and science that men do.

[Honeycombe8]

26. You're getting sidetracked. That's not what the OP is about. It's about customary etiquette &manners

nt

[MattBaggins]

32. You broadened the discussion by what seemed an implication

that Gender Roles are biological. People are discussing that.

[ljm2002]

45. Excuse me???

I was replying to your post, that was responding to boston bean's post about whether there is a biological basis to gender. Your post started with "Sorry...that is a matter of science. CT scans can show you" and went on to talk about females using the verbal side of the brain and males using the spatial side, among other things.

[Orrex]

46. It's been proven

Girls are made of sugar & spice & everything nice, whereas boys are composed of snakes & snails & puppy dog tails.

QED

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Gender is definitely not taught. It's reinforced perhaps, but not taught!

I have a several daughters who I am trying to raise to be independent young women.

No matter what I do, they still gravitate to cute and fluffy animals, jewelry, nice dresses, etc. They are young women.

My son, who is a middle child, wants nothing to do with girl stuff. It was trucks, trains, planes, tools, etc.

===

I like girls who are called Tomboys... In spite of me, not one in the crowd. They're independent, but not one Tomboy.

This gender assignment was evident from the day the kids were born - before TV and preschool.

[MillennialDem]

13. Do you think that's universal? How come some people are transgender and others are

not transgender but don't like stuff typical to their sex?

Many people who are boys and want to be girls like dresses and dolls and all that. Reverse that for many who are girls and want to be boys.

Yet there are girls happy to be girls who like to play with trucks.

There are boys happy to be boys who like to play with dolls.

And there are even boys who want to be girls who like to play with trucks (if that's not a mind fuck, I don't know what is).

[TheBlackAdder]

15. Don't think like the Sith. Not everything is Black & White.

Male children are generally born with a predominance of male gender.

Female children are generally born with a predominance of female gender.

There are always exceptions to the rule and blends as we are talking about nature, biology and evolution.

The reinforcement of gender stereotypes tends to mask these characteristics as being non-standard.

===

You cannot teach a boy to not want to play with dolls.

They might hide it from you, they might play with male-oriented toys to placate you, but they will still like to play with dolls if/until they outgrow that desire. That's the difference here. Teaching someone and reinforcing their behavior to fit a specific mold versus the traits they have when they are born.

When my kids were born, they immediately gravitated to their gender roles without influence.

[redqueen]

20. Did you raise them on an island with no exposure to the outside world?

Because that is pretty much the only way to avoid such influence.

[TheBlackAdder]

22. Or is just depends on how good your parenting skills are. nt

[redqueen]

37. How does that matter? You can counter the message, but you can't eliminate it.

They will be exposed to tons of influences unless they're removed from them entirely.

[TheBlackAdder]

38. I guess the influences you expose your kids to are more influential/altering than the ones I do. nt

[redqueen]

39. Unless you're blindfolding them when you go out in public,

forbidding any tv and most books, and severely limiting what relatives can say around them, and how they can act around them, then they're exposed to influences just like every other kid not on an island.

[TheBlackAdder]

40. You really need to relax.

I was referring to the children at a young age, once they get out of the house and into play groups and then preschool, they are subject to a vast myriad of influences. At that point, you can only provide proper guidance, topic discussion that is age appropriate and try to filter some of the more negative influences.

Perhaps your relatives are different than mine. I'm not judging your household, why are you judging mine as though they will greatly influence the children in a certain manner? That might occur in your household, but not in mine, so hopefully you were not projecting.

[redqueen]

41. How old do kids need to be before they go out into the world?

They do go out in public, so they will see billboards and other advertisements.

Humans mimic. It's how we learn. Relatives don't have to work to influence kids. Kids see what adults do, and they learn. If they see women cooking and men not cooking, guess what they learn? This applies to a myriad of human behaviors.

Maybe "in your household" things are vastly different to the great majority of the households in the world, where women do most of the housework, cooking, and childcare. I dunno, I just know kids learn from a lot more than you seem to think they do. Nobody has to set out to influence them. They see, they hear, they learn.

[TheBlackAdder]

42. You've missed the points I'd made and you just want to have a conflict.

End of conflict baiting discussion.

[MattBaggins]

33. "You cannot teach a boy to not want to play with dolls"

I don't believe that statement is even remotely true.

[TheBlackAdder]

34. You can teach him not to play with dolls, but the hidden desire exists.

Pretend all you want, the concept of brainwashing was disproven 30 years ago.

Once a subject is away from their captors or those in control, they return to their normal status.

The kid might act uninterested, might be dissuaded from picking them up when you're around... but leave them out when you go away and presto. Johhny's playing with Barbie and Ken. Gi Joe was just male versions of dress-up dolls, with their own outfits. Still dolls to appease the role-playing younger males who want to change up the clothes on men since they can't undress imaginary women. Now, if playing with a Barbie make a boy effeminate, why doesn't playing with a macho male doll make him pick up same-sex tendancies... Or does it? Because, that wiring had already been set years ago - the rest is denial.

Now go downstairs and remove those alligator clamps that are attached to a battery pack & potentiometer from his privates and let the kid play. Your boy will be OK no matter what he chooses.

[MattBaggins]

35. I agree with you

your double negative through me off and I read the line incorrectly.

That being said you battery comment was a bit out of line

[TheBlackAdder]

36. Come on... You've got to give me props for that.

I was being snarky and was going to first write n***les, but that didn't sound right for a kid.

Not even for the use of potentiometer?

[tammywammy]

14. I recommend you read the book "As Nature Made Him" by John Colapinto.

It's the case demonstrating that gender is nature not nurture.

[boston bean]

16. Still not convincing. Very sad and awful thing that was done to him.

But, many girls don't want to play with dolls or wear dresses and are tom boys. I was one of them. I felt the full weight of forced gender roles when I hit puberty, though. It was no longer acceptable to be a tom boy. I had to be more lady like. And I did it, but the feeling of the day it started changing, never really left me.

Based on what society told him a man should be, he felt extremly inadequate and killed himself, and from what I read, there were other circumstances as well.

Very very awful sad story. The doctor that did this to him, should never been allowed to practice medicine.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. Wait, I think you just stated that you will not believe "x" because

Belief in "x" could then imply <assorted bad things>. I'm going to ignore the question "does 'gender is biological' imply that 'there is a reason for less pay...'", and just grant that your statement there is true, for now. Gender either is biological (in whole or in part) or it isn't. It does not matter what dire implications the biological basis of gender, if there is one, has. Facts do not become false because they are inconvenient. Gender can have a biological basis (in whole or in part), and that can imply bad things (there could be 'reasons for pay discrimination'), but we as a society can decide, biological basis for gender or not, that all people should be paid equally for equal work.

[boston bean]

19. The issue is broad brushing either sex with what society says how a man

is suppose to be and how a woman is suppose to be based on their sex.

Genders have roles associated with them in society. Certainly I can agree that it shouldn't be a factor.

My own experience as a woman, and I am certain others, including some men, have felt pushed into certain roles due to their biological sex.

I just don't think that its helpful to say that women are more likely to be feminine because they are biologically a female. Nor do I think it is helpful to say that a man is likely to be more masculine because they are biologically a male. That does mean less choices for everyone.

There's a lot on this spectrum, and if everyone was just allowed to be who they are, the world would be a better place.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. if gender isn't biological, how are the folks over at factcheckme going to figure out

which babies to starve?

http://factcheckme.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/heads-men-win-tails-women-lose/#comment-15117

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. As I type this, my daughter-in-law is in my shop changing the axles in her Cobalt.

I think there are differences between genders but they don't mainifest in any way meaningful to the topic at hand.

[datasuspect]

7. inshallah

&feature=share&list=PLA2E8FC3BBDC47ED4

[Honeycombe8]

27. ??? What does this have to do with customary etiquette and manners in the U.S.? nt

[LittleBlue]

8. Well said!

I've been a feminist for many years. I gave this etiquette thing some thought years ago, while working through my feminist thoughts. I ultimately decided that traditional forms of etiquette are not demeaning and do not denote sexism. I decided that there are, in fact, differences between the two genders (in the brain, and otherwise biologically), that some of the etiquette comes from that, and some of the etiquette dates back to the way women dressed and the environment in which they lived (dirt roads, tall buggies, corsets and long skirts). Some forms of etiquette...who knows where they come from. At this point, they are just tradition.

This is the way I feel about it as well. Some of it is wiring, some of it are changeable traditions resulting from a customs we began to practice from before antiquity to the Middle Ages. These customs range from very harmful to cute. We should keep the harmless customs that we wish to keep and disregard the ones that are harmful. I can only speak for myself: I don't want to discard courteous, harmless traditions like opening doors or pulling out chairs. It makes me feel good when people are courteous to me and when I'm courteous to others, and it makes others feel good.

[Honeycombe8]

29. Thx! nt

[Lisa D]

10. Nice post.

And that's one of my favorite movies too

[Honeycombe8]

30. Thanks. I love that movie. Tevya was great. nt

[NaturalHigh]

11. Thanks. Nice post.

[Whisp]

18. You are right, the door thing is not a big issue

so I don't understand why it's been made into one with 497 threads that it IS an issue.

[Demo_Chris]

43. I prefer this version of the song in the OP