If Women Can Kill Chivalry, Then Chivalry Needs to Hit the Gym

I suspect this discussion will be more fruitful if I begin it with the clear acknowledgement that third wave feminism is an embarrassing dumpster fire that deserves every ounce of mockery it receives.

No one should take your claim to advocate for women seriously if you don’t even have the ovaries to define what a woman is. Even the notorious Women’s March has been transjacked by men’s sexual rights activists to the degree that the group no longer wears the pink pussy hats that originally defined it because fetishistic men decided from on high that the hats were hateful and transphobic. You can’t make this stuff up.

I have quite a few gripes with second wave feminism, as well, most of my frustration linked to the subject of abortion, but it would be a mistake and a distraction to go too far down that rabbit hole in this particular discussion. The point is that my eyes are wide open to the legitimate criticisms of feminism at large. I’m not wearing rose colored glasses in my approach to it. There are issues, big ones, and I’m not afraid to name them.

BUT….

This blog entry is not about that. It’s about a sentiment I encounter at least three times a week in my advocacy against the trans lobby and for the safeguarding of women and girls. For as many times as I’ve heard it (and I’ve literally hundreds and hundreds of times at this point), it never ceases to trigger my internal truth and justice flags, which wave wildly around in my brain until I make time to address the problem they signal. Here’s what I hear from way too many men when it comes to the myriad harms the trans lobby is inflicting on women. It goes something like this:

• “Feminists made this problem. Now you’re gonna have to deal with it. I’m sitting this one out.”

• “You made your bed; now lie in it.”

• “You wanted equality; now you got it.”

• “You kept telling everyone you’re the same as men. What did you think was going to happen?”

• And just yesterday, “Women killed chivalry. Why should I help you? You kept telling men you didn’t need us. Why should we care?”

Every day I field these messages. A number of men have taken it a step further by arguing that women shouldn’t even vote because we aren’t required to register for the draft. “If you want equality, then risk your life in war like the rest of us,” some guy told me last week. I tried to remind him that more American women have died in childbirth than American men have died in wars and that this really ought to count toward the repayment of the dues we apparently owe, but my argument was roundly dismissed as feminist drivel because everyone knows that the willingness to sacrifice your life on behalf of others only really counts when men do it in the wars they forbade women to fight. It’s a really convenient system, this insistence that we do “the men’s work” only to punish and berate us for trying.

What these men (not all men) are really saying is that when women reject men’s control, we forfeit our right to men’s protection. They’re saying that because some women behave badly, all women deserve to be punished, and no women deserve their concern or protection. I am sick to death of this selfish, fragile mentality. It’s both morally and logically bankrupt.

For one thing, feminism isn’t entirely to blame for transmania. The entire field of sexology has a lot to answer for in this regard. Pedophile sympathizers in academia paired with money hungry reprobates at the wheel of the pharmaceutical industry created and fed this monster, and they almost always get a free pass in these conversations because it’s so much easier to just scapegoat feminism and blame women for our own mistreatment.

No, guys, women’s fight to be treated like human beings who have the right to a voice in the laws that govern us does NOT mean we believe our bodies are the same as men’s bodies. Wanting equal legal protections is not the same as pretending we are the same as you, and it doesn’t justify your apathy about our mistreatment. If you’re bitter at the invitation to share some of your power rather than lording it over the weaker sex, then we didn’t kill your chivalry. You never had any to begin with.

Good men don’t place conditions on their righteousness. They do what’s right because it’s right, with or without the applause of the people it benefits.

If your gentlemanly conduct disappears the minute a woman hurts your feelings or falls out of line with your preferred script, then maybe you’re not quite the alpha gentleman you think you are. If your chivalry is so easily slain, then maybe it needs to bulk up a little. What kind of manly man runs scared of a big bad feminist?

What even is chivalry? It’s courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help those weaker than yourself. True chivalry doesn’t lead with ego. It’s not deterred by criticism. It’s motivated by righteousness, not applause.

And if you insist on leading, then by all means, lead. Lead with humility. Lead with honor. Lead by consistently modeling the behavior you beseech in others, especially women. If you’re sitting on the sidelines gloating when women are assaulted, then the problem is decidedly not women’s strength; it’s your own frailty. Women don’t need to shrink. You need to rise. You don’t need bigger muscles; you need greater moral strength. Man up already.

Men AND women created this mess. Men AND women must work together to fix it.