With regard to opening doors many women assert that men who do so are being

With regard to opening doors many women assert that men who do so are being

With regard to opening doors many women assert that men who do so are being "gentleman" and those who don't are ungentlemanly. Likewise some feminists assert that men are sexist if they open a door for them. I've tried to research this issue very thoroughly so I know what I am talking about but among the many many websites I've read about this none have ever said that it was wrong to assume why a person is or isn't opening a door for you, until ironically while I was writing this I came across this one video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coi1Sc5ss_s where a self-described feminist does in fact acknowledge that "[I] do recognize most people do it just to be polite." In fact all of the websites other than that Youtube video I read come down under two opposed factions- those who say that men who open doors for women are sexist and those that say that men who don't open doors for women are impolite- with no nuanced opinion standing in between. On the one hand I don't like to be thought of as ungentlemanly and on the other hand I find the whole open the door for a woman thing to be such an extravagant and gender specific gesture that I can't really visualize myself ever doing it. While it is one thing to have an opinion about whether the social practice of opening doors for women is wrong isn't it kind of presumptuous to ascribe a sexist motivation to a man who opens a door for a woman? Or to assume that he is rude? Isn't it actually reverse sexism to think that way because it doesn't take into account male perspective? I'm sorry if I don't understand these websites my experience in life is that people make simplistic assumptions based on minimal evidence.

Read another response by Nicholas D. Smith
Read another response about Feminism
Print