17 Observations on Chivalry

I try to avoid hot takes. My takes are served cold.

Writers who fall in love with hot provocation, soon fall into the trap of saying stupid things just to stir the pot. They get clicks in the short term, but nobody trusts them over the long haul.

So I have a litmus test. Before I offer an opinion, I pressure test it. Is it sensible? Is it persuasive? Will it have a positive impact?

I advise other writers to do the same. But these quibbles come at a cost. Editors do not want measured, reasonable opinion pieces. Common sense never goes viral. Cold takes are like cold cuts—you lay ‘em out as nicely as you can, but everybody still rushes off to the hot buffet.

But sometimes viewpoints I embrace as cold, plain sense strike others as sizzling hot. I suspect that might be the case with today’s musings on chivalry.

Even so, chivalry itself teaches me to jump in—because it’s built on proper behavior, not pleasing the crowd. So without further ado, here are 17 icy cold observations on chivalry.

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17 Observations on Chivalry

1.

Rousseau once claimed that men are better able to survive without women, than the other way around. But biology teaches the opposite lesson.

The optimal ratio to propagate the human species is twenty women for every man, if not more. That’s because—let me put this in genteel words—the egg is more scarce than the seed.

So a degree of chivalry is built into human evolution. For the good of the species, men need to protect women more than women need to protect men.

2.

Men feel this instinctively. That’s why 74% of the women on the Titanic survived, but only 19% of the men. The men weren’t thinking of manners and politeness when they stood back and encouraged women to take seats in the lifeboats.

Something more powerful than etiquette intervened—a biological imperative hardwired into their DNA.

3.

This male evolutionary impulse to chivalry was demonstrated in the starkest manner on July 20, 2012.

That was the day a deranged man, who claimed he was the Joker, entered a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado during the showing of a Batman film. He was armed with multiple weapons, and over the course of a few minutes, fired 76 bullets from three different guns.

Seventy people were injured, and twelve killed. Several of the victims were men who died because they instinctively put their own bodies in the line of fire to protect the woman seated next to them. This was not a wife or a mother or a daughter—just their date for the evening.

I doubt any of these men had ever given the slightest thought to what they would do in a situation like this. Nobody goes to the movies expecting gunfire and a life-or-death decision. But these guys didn’t need to consult a preconceived plan—they reacted immediately, and protected their companion.

Attitudes about gender roles had changed a lot since the time of the Titanic. But this instinctive chivalry had not—it came from a place much deeper than social norms and community standards.

Yes, chivalry still exists today, but primarily at this hidden level. Most of us live in stable, non-violent places where we don’t need to consult the rules of chivalry as part of a species survival plan. So we are free to dismiss their relevance, or even laugh at them.

But it wouldn’t take much for these instincts to flare up again.

4.

A big brouhaha erupted on social media recently—because a man refused to help a woman put a heavy suitcase in the overhead compartment of a plane.

He was a jerk. But some men rushed to his defense. I’m not into public shaming, so I’m omitting the names here. But, frankly, this is sad stuff. Check out some of the responses.