Reconsidering Chivalry

There's an old saying, "Remember when men were men?" It may not feel that old, but it harkens back to a day well before my generation stepped foot on this earth. A time we fondly look back on as too "chivalric" and laugh at as being unrefined and uneducated. A time of inequality, even inhumanity.

Today, the simple act of opening a door so that a woman might pass through first, or walking her home simply to make sure she arrives safely is scoffed at.

On a deeper level, we have told men they are overly-violent, sexually-driven vagabonds who cannot be trusted with responsibility. In short, we make the claim that men are irrelevant to society, denuding them of parental and spousal responsibility - making the claim that the burden they should have been carrying is best suited to be born by women. All this we know. All this has been coalesced into a singular societal expectation, where, when we hear of a man who stands by his family for a lifetime, he is lauded as a hero. When a man doing what men once did is either tossed aside as crazy or lifted up as the epitome of what once was. All this we know.

But, do you remember when women were allowed to be women? The constant bombardment of media, culture, and peers yells that a woman is incomplete, inhibited, even restrained if she is unable to live her life in the same unrestrained, irresponsible way as a man - the same man from whom responsibility has been stripped. She is told unless she pursues life in the same dispassionate way, she is trapped in a prison. Yet, to do so, she must forfeit the very thing that makes her a woman. No, forfeit is not right word. She must expunge any trace of femininity. For the major consequence of such a lifestyle is engaging the very biological trait that is uniquely tied to femininity. Yet, it is this very possibility of maternity that is derided as the factor that subjugates women, as if it is the disease from which women suffer. And, with every disease, there must be a cure - a chemical or medical miracle. Birth control, and, in cases where that is insufficient, abortion, is prescribed so that women can become as today's men. To become the equivalent of, if not fill the void left by men.

What if men, in general, were to chose the well being of women ahead of their own pleasure? What if men were to prioritize family? And what if men were to say, once again, it is their duty and cherished responsibility to make a woman feel safe, to be willing to lay down their lives so women need not remove her femininity? Would women once again be women?

But today we are left with the understanding that to be a man is to be irrelevant and to be a woman is to have a disease.

Yet, if we listen closely, there is a cry echoing in the empty corridors, "When will men be men again?"

C.F. Brake is a young attorney working to change the culture for the sake of our young men and women. Follow the blog on Twitter (@cf_brake) or e-mail C.F. Brake at cfbrakeblog@gmail.com.