Chivalry and equality must be allowed to coexist

WOMEN need to back off the outrage and stop stacking up gender crimes like kindling for burning men at the stake, writes Louise Roberts.

HE might not be able to rustle up a perfectly crisp roast or tuck in the bed sheets with precision but if my son learns this one thing, I’ll leave this planet a happy mother.

As night follows day, I want him to know that chivalry and equality go together like bread and butter.

I will explain to him that polite, honest and altruistic behaviour towards women does not mean he is a sexist pig.

And that life for him as a man is not about hurdling toxic feminist road blocks, clipping his shins as he braces for the onslaught because he has opened a door or paid a compliment.

It’s heavy duty, I’ll admit, as my boy is still only 14. Yet it is vitally important because he is no longer a child either. His shirts all require adult hangers now, I note with a lump in my throat.

His voice is suddenly deep. I cannot get my chin over the top of his floppy but well-curated hair when I pull him close for the random hugs he dishes out, such is the speed of his growth.

But physical changes aside, I do not want him or his contemporaries to live in fear of what they might say because they are men.

Who wants their son apologising for their existence, stuck in a world agitating 24/7 for a gender crisis when there is no need. Or worse, going on the defensive with soon to be girlfriends and expecting the worst, because attack is the best form of self-preservation?

As parents we owe it to our boys, right to the very fibre of our being, to change the narrative for the next generation. Any modern female dosed up on “equality” but bereft of common sense is a foe not a friend to them. But they will have to learn how to deal with her.

We’ve allowed the current narrative to flourish because feminism has been corrupted beyond its actual definition — equality for men and women.

So if you’re a woman and have snarled: “I can open the door myself” when a bloke with the very best of intentions has extended his arm to help you, shame on you.

Of course parents must teach their children about equality, but it also comes down to teaching them good manners and respect. (Pic: supplied)

If you have point scored on a hapless “creep” who dared to politely and genuinely praise your appearance or something positive about your personality, shame on you too.

And when you’re done with grinding out masculine old-fashioned civility like a grimy cigarette butt — the chivalry all our dads and grandads were raised on — you have a new task to focus on.

Dial back the outrage and stop stacking up alleged gender crime like kindling in a back yard to set fire to and burn all men at the stake.

The importance of why chivalry and equality can and must be allowed to coexist has been reinforced this week via a column by Karlie Rutherford, an entertainment reporter with this newspaper who is 23 weeks pregnant.

But that’s only half the story. Karlie wrote about riding a packed bus on a hot day and on her way home from work.

During her pre-expecting days, this independent young woman quite happily accepted like the rest of us that it was first come first served in the scramble for seats.

But watching the men studiously ignore her bump and a woman offer up her seat gave Karlie, she revealed, a depressing insight into how the much the globally revered “battle for equality” has killed kindness from men to women.

And, from my observations, from women to men too.

It has massacred manners. And it has rendered empathy almost extinct because men are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

A former colleague in the UK told me not so long ago about engineered “Good Lad” workshops being flagged in some schools. There, unsuspecting boys are singled out for sessions on the perceived “scale of sexual harassment and violence aimed at female students” and how they must stand up for women’s rights.

Sound familiar? Our boys are part of a global problem.

It may be an unpopular lesson at the time, but your sons and daughters will thank you for it in the long run. (Pic: iStock)

Another friend of mine was recently doing the weekly supermarket shop with her teenage sons. As they rounded the end of an aisle, they noticed a staff member stacking the shelf with her hands full.

As she put a box down, she knocked another pile and everything went crashing to the floor. Luckily it wasn’t eggs.

My friend’s sons moved quickly to assist her, scooping up all the fallen items and packing them neatly on the shelf for her. When they were finished they re-joined my friend and they proceeded down the aisle.

The staffer went after the family, stopping them. She had tears in her eyes and said no one had ever done something like that for her before.

“No problem,” replied the teenage boys. There was no fuss, no fanfare and their mother, my friend, certainly didn’t roll out a red carpet and worship them for their chivalry.

“It’s just basic good behaviour — you don’t walk away from someone who needs a hand when you are in a position to give on. I did say to the boys good spotting, though.”

Here’s the thing about chivalry. It shouldn’t be a big deal.

That same friend told me a story about how she was driving down the street last week when she saw an elderly man slumped on the footpath.

Two elderly women had also seen him and the three of them stopped to help. Between them they were able to get the man up — he was a diabetic who had become dizzy and tripped on the footpath.

My friend offered to drive him home or to the hospital but he was insistent that he was fine. He was happy to get a lift to the pub, where he met his friends each morning for a flutter on the horses.

Women are not weak. Men are not brutes and their motives should not routinely be seen as suspicious on account of their gender.

Tells your sons. And your daughters too. Change the narrative about chivalry being a smoking gun.

@whatlouthinks