Spare the chivalry, give me equal pay and prospects

Crushing chivalry: a seat on the Tube, or a smashed glass ceiling?
12 April 2012

The Middle Ages weren't a great time to live. A boom era for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, when bubonic boils and later syphilitic scars were the war wounds of life and when — according to Horace Walpole at least — you had to watch out for giant helmets falling from the sky.

Yet one element of the medieval period retains a romantic fixation: its code of chivalry. Sure, few today would advocate crusades to convert the rest of the world to the Western way (oh, wait ), but when it comes to relations between the sexes, there are many, male and female, who mourn the demise of "gentlemanly" behaviour.

Chivalry is dead, they say, stamped on by the Doc Martens of dungaree-clad feminists. As though Germaine, Simone and Andrea have done us a disservice.

Last week, Miley Cyrus revealed herself to be one of these female chivalry-missers. The actress came over all Guinevere, swooning over her Lancelot (Aussie actor Liam Hemsworth) who courted her, she gushes, by holding open doors.

Meanwhile, a new book from Debrett's, the toffs' etiquette adviser, is the latest attempt to bring back the values of chivalry for the modern age, in this case for the road.

The advice included in "Thoroughly Modern Motoring Manners" includes: "A chivalrous man will ensure that his female passenger is comfortable before the journey begins. He should offer to take her coat, check that her seat is adjusted and be sure that the temperature is to her liking." In 2010. I had to check it wasn't an April fool.

Because I thought we now lived in a world where a woman could be left to cope with her own clothes. Where operating a chair wouldn't be deemed too taxing for the "fairer sex". Where we could pluck up the courage to say something if we feel chilly. One of us wimmin was allowed to run the country, after all.

I'm all for better behaviour on the road, and for good manners in general. Whenever I see someone spitting, I shudder and think "hello TB!"; phlegm expulsion being best done in private. Everyone should give up their seats on public transport to pregnant women and the elderly and a few more pleases and thank-yous would be welcome.

But what we don't need is a distinction between the sexes on decorum. In fact, thank God this is no longer a time of Gawains or Mr Knightleys and that the Milk Tray man was bumped off. Because chivalry has often been a cover for male contempt and condescension — the belittling of women by acting as though we are frail beings who need their help. Small wonder then that it is often accompanied by chauvinistic attitudes about so-called "women's work".

I don't want gallantry, I want a man who cleans the kitchen occasionally; a whiff of Cif being a bigger turn-on than a habit of always grabbing the bill.

Women's quest for equal treatment has inevitably meant swapping a few benefits of old for greater things. You know, like the vote. Splitting the bill is a small sacrifice for the progress made towards equal pay and for not being the only one in a couple acquainted with Henry the Hoover.

And I would prefer to have a few doors slammed in my face than have my career limited by a glass ceiling. Men meanwhile, rather than complaining, should be revelling in their freedom from silly, outdated demands.

Manners? Yes, please. But chivalry is much better left in the Middle Ages.

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