Feminism To Blame For Rude Men
June 9, 2010 3 Comments
Men are refusing to relinquish their seats on public transit to heavily pregnant women.
More than 80% of 1000 women surveyed said that no one offered them a seat, despite the nausea, swollen feet and dizziness that comes with pregnancy.
There are several explanations for why this is, but one columnist assures us that feminism forced men to be inconsiderate.
Most women in the UK are made to stand on public transit, two surveys have revealed.
The reasons that commuters are refusing to give up their seats range from selfishness to concern about mistaking an obese woman for a pregnant one.
In the past there was an easy way around this dilemma, as Carol Sarler explains:
After all, if you routinely gave up your seat to women, you’d be saved all the bother of working out whether they are pre-natal, post-natal or just plain porky.
My father did so, as a matter of course, as did my much older brother; it would not have occurred to them to do otherwise.
Yet such courtesies have no currency whatsoever in the charm banks of today’s generation of men – and what makes it that much more shameful is how noticeably this applies peculiarly to British men.
She lumps giving up seats for pregnant women in with other courtesies that feminism has done away with. Men should tip their hats, open doors for women, pull back our seats, hold our coats, and walk us home (along the curbside so that we are protected from splashes of passing traffic). She misses men standing when a woman enters the room “so much it hurts”.
During a recent holiday she packed more in her suitcase than she could carry, expecting a man to pull it from the carousel from her, and after a recent shopping trip she was shocked that no passers-by offered to carry her bags home for her.
What century is she from? Can we send her back?
Like anything that cannot change with the times, these behaviours have thankfully become extinct. Women are not delicate flowers that need protection. We are people and should be expected to carry our own weight.
So does this mean that pregnant women should stand on public transit? Of course not. Able bodied people (that includes women) should have the courtesy to offer their seats to people in need. That can include old people or parents traveling with children.
It can also include people traveling with large pieces of luggage, people who are ill, people who are obviously having trouble with difficult shoes, very tired people, people carrying construction materials, people traveling with pets and people crying.
In short, give it up for people who need the seat more than you do.
And the seat shouldn’t be relinquished because of chivalry, but because people should have compassion for one another.
The opposite of rudeness isn’t feminism, it is consideration.
Amen to that last sentiment. There is nothing that says equality means we get to stop being considerate of people in need, whatever their gender. I give up my seat on a bus as readily to a father with a young child as to a woman with shopping bags.
I still remember the French man who helped me with a heavy suitcase in Paris – it meant so much, because it was a hot day, and I was somewhat lost. He was dressed in a smart suit and carrying a briefcase, presumably on his own way somewhere, but not too busy to see that, while I’m an able-bodied person who could have slowly made her way down the two flights of stairs to the subway platform, his help meant I got there faster and more safely. Which is what should really be the point of courtesies in the first place.
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Feminists demanded equality and they got it. Unfortunately, they have dragged unwilling non-feminists with them.