At one point in the movie, the two oldest sons, Fritz and Ernst, start a voyage around the coast to see if the island is actually an island. They rescue a boy held captive by pirates, and they all run away in escape. Later on, Fritz and Ernst discover that the boy is, in fact, a girl. Suddenly, the pattern of rough boy treatment flipped dramatically into the boys falling over themselves to hold her hand and help her carefully walk over the rocks.
In contrast to that, the next day I was back at the airport for another work trip. While standing by the gate waiting to board, one man blew past me as his boarding group was called, dragging his suitcase behind him. His suitcase whacked me in the leg. The man didn't even glance back, let alone apologize.
It's official: chivalry is 100% dead, 6-feet under, pushing daisies (and arguably, even basic manners). I've been somewhat mourning it recently. I'm not saying we should revert back to that time completely, and erase all the progress we've made in women earning equal respect and fair treatment. But I miss the days when women were ladies and men were gentlemen. Nowadays, boys call girls sluts, employ extremely lazy behavior when dating (they don't even date--they "hang out" and look for hookups), and act like uncivilized animals with no manners at all. Girls aren't helping the situation, either, by willingly exploiting their sexuality and obsessing over selfies with duck faces. What happened to parenting? What happened to teaching young boys how to treat ladies, and teaching young girls how to respect themselves?
I was telling a friend my recent story of The Model (who informed me on our second date of his interest in butts--don't think I mentioned that in the blog), and my friend told me I needed to date a gentleman. I replied that the only real gentleman I went out with in recent memory was The Great Dane, whom I had met on a flight back from London, and who lived in Denmark, so it was likely just a one-time date, unfortunately. He said, "you had to go to Europe to meet a gentleman? That's really sad."
Yes, it is sad.
Trying to stay positive,
Skeptic
What's sad is that 50 years ago, chivalry was the norm. And women were perfectly in their rights to ditch/ignore a man who didn't properly court her, open doors, pick her up, pay for the meals, etc.
ReplyDeleteNow, I manage to drag on relationships longer than need be for the simple fact that the guy is polite to me. Because that's how little I expect!