Recently in Iowa a high school student refused to wrestle a girl in his same weight class during a wrestling competition. His justification for what he did was that he had been raised to believe that men should not engage women in a violent sport such as wrestling, and that his faith would not allow him to compete against a girl in wrestling. In his statement released to the media he said that it was “unfortunate that I have been placed in this situation.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/17/sports/main20032962.shtml
Rather that chastising the boy for his sexism towards a female opponent and his self-victimization in his statement, many people across the web and blogosphere are actually applauding what he did. Many are saying that the boy’s decision was the right one at that he was simply taking a chivalrous stance when it came to engaging in a sport with a female opponent. This brings to my mind the age-old debate as to whether chivalry is a form of sexism.
Chivalry came into being during the feudal period in medieval Europe. The basic idea behind chivalry as it relates to women is that they should be put upon the proverbial pedestal and protected by the men who surround them. Throughout American history, men have expected each other and women have expected men to be chivalrous toward women as a sign of respect to the female.
The primary problem that I see with the practice of chivalry is…why? I mean, I’m not trying to say that showing respect for women is a bad thing, or that opening doors and pulling out chairs are not signs of respect toward your fellow human being. But why should women be the only ones to receive this treatment. And most importantly, what is it about females that would warrant society to give them special treatment or protections? What is the practice of chivalry trying to insinuate about women that demands special treatment?
Some would say that chivalry is nothing more than a way for men to respect women and that women deserve special treatment because women are special beings. This can be a sincerely held belief and it certainly is an improvement over other ways in which men regard and treat women. The problem here is that by advocating special treatment for women and that special protections be given to them it insinuates that women somehow need special treatment or protections because they are not capable enough to get what they want or strong enough to protect themselves.
This also relates to antifeminist criticism of the feminist movement. The current backlash against feminism usually includes the accusation that we feminists don’t want equal rights, but rather preferential treatment. However, if we actually look at the goals of feminism and compare them with the true feelings of our opponents and antifeminist women, we find that it is antifeminists themselves that actually want to give women special treatment.
Let’s look at an example from the website for the antifeminist organization Concerned Women for America. Below is linked an article written several months ago by Brenda Zurita of CWA.
http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=19112&department=BLI&categoryid=commentary&subcategoryid=blicul
In the article she rants that when she got on a bus the men on said bus did not automatically surrender their seats to her because she is a woman. She then goes on, not only to express her outrage at this lack of preferential treatment toward her, but to blame, guess who, feminists for the lack of undeserved reverence she wanted to receive.
The thing is, those at Concerned Women for America are often amongst the crowd that claim that feminists only want preferential treatment for women, rather than equal rights. Yet, here we see that one of their major points of angst against feminists is we have taught men that they no longer need to shower women with special treatment or privileges because women are strong enough and capable enough to take care of themselves. Let us also remember that the STOP ERA campaign in the 1970s against the Equal Rights Amendment was waged mostly by the same women who are now a part of CWA and that STOP in STOP ERA stood for Stop Taking Our Privileges.
This shows the hypocrisy that social conservatives show on this issue and that it is conservative women, not feminists, who demand undeserved treatment for themselves. And who have often stood in the way of true progress and liberation for women in order to get and keep special treatment. It is feminists who have not wanted special protections, whether it is in business, the military, or sports. It is feminists who have demanded equal treatment for women which includes the same rights and responsibilities as men.
Besides, the inherent motive behind chivalry is the idea that women are the property of men, needing to be protected by the men who own them. They are placed on a pedestal only be seen as beautiful objects. Women are not objects to be treated with reverence; they are human beings to be treated with equality.
