Chivalry. Why do I think men should give up their seats on the bus for women? #Chivalry #MensRights #Testosterone
Music: https://www.purple-planet.com
Transcript
Paul Cram: I’m Paul Cram. So my brother sent me a text and it included a link to a story I believe it’s recent, if it’s not recent it’s going around, making the rounds on the internet again. And the story is about a man who did not give up his seat for a pregnant woman on the bus.
The headline on it is: A Man Asks if He is in The Wrong for not Giving up his Seat for a Pregnant Woman. And just to give a little bit of a synopsis, as if that wasn’t enough, the man shares that he works. He’s on his feet all day. And he works, and his car is in the shop, so he’s taking the bus. And on this particular day he was extremely tired after a full day of work. And on to the full, very full bus, walks the pregnant woman and she ends up near him, looks at him, and I believe she even asks him if he would give her his seat. He responds with “no.” She proceeds to, I believe in the story, say that she, he says that she got a bit teary-eyed and that people on the bus started to say how awful of a person he was for not giving up his seat.
There’s something about this story that strikes me as being probably fake. Meaning it’s a little too perfect. I think in some ways. But it brings up a lot of good questions and maybe that’s why whoever put it together, put it together. Because it raises questions of chivalry, it raises questions of the role of men, and it raises questions of the role of women and comfort. And I keep thinking of chivalry and how are we supposed to handle that and deal with that in the current culture? And to use that phrase, I heard that term, Zeitgeist.
How does that all fit together? I think that the article is probably fake, like i said, but it raises some good questions. So my big question is not necessarily if he is in the right or if he is in the wrong, because I’ve been thinking about it a little bit and I’m like ‘what would make it right for him to do this? What would make it wrong for him to do this?’ and it sent me down that thought rabbit-hole of ‘What is chivalry? What does that look like and why why do we have this idea in our current culture that men should give their seat up for women?’
It reminds me of the old adage from days before, I think we still do this, but from days before where you know, men are. Oops, not men. But ‘women and children first!’ You know, like on the Titanic sinking. Women and children get in the boats first and men generally take on that role of danger and the harder, physically harder role in general. Why is that?
Bear with me because I’m going to go a little bit on a rabbit-trail-of-thought. And I’m going to just refer to,
[clicks on laptop keyboard]
I had looked this up. I’m going to refer to a note. The US Women’s National Soccer Team, I believe it was in 2017, let me double check here. 2017 it looks like, they played a group of young young men, young men in their teens. And I think that the young men were all around the age of 15 or something like that. And they had a scrimmage. And the boys won the scrimmage. Which you can argue that maybe, just maybe the women weren’t playing as hard as they usually do for their Olympic team. Does that totally matter? I can’t think of a men’s team that would probably not beat the boys if they were playing them in a scrimmage. I just don’t think that they would let that happen. Which points a little bit to an interesting thought I have about women. [The thought is ‘did the women let the boys win? and if yes, that says something about them compared to men.] and I’m hopeful, I’m hopeful that people aren’t thinking that everything I’m going to be saying is sexist. But i do think it’s a good conversation to have. I bring up the women’s soccer article and that note about the boys winning and beating the women because this is Olympic level players losing to 15 year old boys. It points to, and it begs the question of ‘why did that happen?’ and I just have to say it’s testosterone.
Come on people, men have a physical strength, in general, advantage over women. That is where my thoughts are running and why i believe chivalry has been kind of what it probably has become over time. And probably where some of that started from too.
This physical strength matters in certain contexts.
Am i saying that men are better than women? No. Am I saying that men in general are stronger than women? Yes. If you have a problem with that, don’t take it up with me. Take it up with testosterone.
So that’s where my brain went. Kind of going through the ‘whys’ of some of this, and why would we think in our current culture and society that this gentleman is in the wrong?
Like he said, he worked all day, and he was tired, and his feet hurt. It doesn’t say what his age is in the article. I’d be kind of curious to know what that was. It doesn’t necessarily say the age of the woman, we can make certain assumptions. The article again, some of why I think it was fake, was because you know, the woman is riding a bus pregnant, and she is a single mother apparently, and I don’t know. Some of it just it rings a little bit false to me. Although real life is stranger sometimes than fiction. So there is that.
Do I personally think that he should have given up his seat? Yes.
Have I been conditioned to believe that? Yes.
Do men face an interesting thing in our current culture — where it’s hard sometimes to know what to do? There are women oftentimes that I’ve come across who do not want me to open a door for them. So things like that start to change the culture in a way. Change the norms, if you would. And I do believe that some of the norms that exist should definitely be challenged and definitely be shifted, and we can grow beyond them. Getting up and giving your seat to a pregnant woman is probably not one of them that should change.
Yeah he makes some very libertarian-esque libertarian-type arguments. You know ‘He isn’t the one that made the decision to get pregnant.’ ‘He isn’t the caretaker of this woman or her child.’ He rudely, in the piece, as well in the piece he brings up that there’s abortion. That there’s easy access to abortion. ‘This shouldn’t even be a problem for me to take on in our current culture.’ And I am not really going to get into all that. Like i said i think the piece is poking buttons and pushing things just for conversation. Which is cool on one hand, but some of it I’m just thinking is ‘yeah.’
So I don’t know that I have anything more to add to that. My thought is that men are, in general, physically stronger because of testosterone. So that’s where I think some of that comes from, and the reason why I think it is important for men to be kind. Maybe even a little bit more gracious sometimes in situations like that.
So yeah does anybody disagree? Let me know. I’d be curious to hear some people’s thoughts.
As always, I appreciate you all. Leave a comment or reach out let me know what you’re thinking. Alrighty thank you.
