DENVER B: Why Men Stopped Offering Women Their Jackets When It's Cold

Chivalry: very polite, honest, and kind behaviour, especially by men towards women. 

Let’s start this off with a question: Is chivalry dead?

It’s a chilled weekend and I’m on my phone scrolling social media when I stumble upon a video. The woman looked pretty, so as is the case with any straight man, I clicked. What followed was something that seemed very mundane to me and very annoying to most men. 

The woman was giving a story of how some guys came over to her (and her friend’s, they’re roommates) place and upon noticing her TV on the floor, proceeded to make fun of her.

She then after having them over called a guy she knew who came with tools and wall-mounted her TV for her. He didn’t ask for anything but only got water and some snacks.

She used this story to describe how real men will do things for you (like the ‘repair’ guy did) without expecting anything in return. She complained of how other men will always want something in return, which was bad. 

While her story and beliefs weren’t all bad, they did bring out a small itch I needed to scratch: this idea of ‘real men’ and how people use it poorly.

I managed to do so here but it went further than that. I noticed something interesting as I thought about the phrase a lot more. 

Listen to it below:

The Concept of ‘Real Men’ 

Every so often, someone online will talk about how real men do one thing or another. The idea of being a ‘real man’ has been taken to mean something odd over the years.

The concept of real men has been made to look like the current model of masculinity, which is mostly founded on a mixture of traditional roles and things that suit women. This idea has made it such that it’s usually the women who end up using the term, mostly to shame men for not doing/being something that benefits said woman.

About 90 per cent of people who use the term are women when speaking of a man they’d like to have (for purposes of having things done for them) or they’d expect to want in the future.

Five per cent of the other users are simps and the remaining five per cent use the term to speak on something they’re capable of which they believe most men should be capable of e.g. providing fully, pedestalizing women, being a stepfather etc. 

This term in retrospect, seeks to please some ideal that is held by some, and I don’t like that. I’m not a fan of pleasing strangers for fake pleasure points. But what I did realize after a bit of thought into this is how the idea of real men bore the same actions that were held by a less often used term; chivalry.

Except for financial muscle and capability, everything attached to the 'real men' moniker spoke towards the old idea of chivalry. 

Where Does The Ideal of Chivalry Come From?

While real men are an ideal borne recently, chivalry dates back to medieval times as a code of conduct for those who joined the knighthood. It spoke of bravery and service to others, before being adopted amongst the general public.

This meant that some aspects were stripped off for good measure and what was left related to service to others, mostly women. As such, it became a must-have trait for men. The code itself was good and was an aspiring ideal, but its realities were a lot different.

The knights that were supposedly governed by this code of conduct were mostly anything but chivalrous. They were the same people who while speaking of code, pillaged villages and harassed prisoners of war.

Their code spoke of an ideal to live by but the ideal itself didn’t have much life amongst its followers. Brutal, aggressive and often mannerless were the terms by many to describe knights under most social circumstances.

So if the people this code was meant for barely followed it, who are we to try the same?

Is it Beneficial to us men? (Or even useful) 

The question of its usefulness or even life today is a matter of debate for most men on an internal level almost every day. The question of whether to be of service to the girl you like yet it put you deeper into the friend zone is a tricky one, but many men are drawn into it regularly.

The knowledge that another man will do less and get more is a baffling thought for us, but it’s the truth we must be comfortable with as men. This truth has been the one to dictate whether we want to do a task and whether we’re doing it for the right reasons, whatever they may be. 

If you were to ask some, they would say that we should do it because it is good to do so. But if you interrogate that mentality for a minute, you realize that the good you speak of involves being a doormat.

A man during an argument with a woman. /FILE

Also, if you’re going to help a beautiful woman you’re crushing on with some painstaking tasks, are you doing it because it’s good, because she wanted you to help (she could be taking advantage of you) or because you just like her and wish she’d let you have more of her? 

So Who Killed Chivalry?

Someone once asked me the first question I started with. Is chivalry dead? 

While I can’t remember my answer at that time, I thought it through later and came to an interesting conclusion: Chivalry didn’t die, it just changed clothes. But if indeed it did die, it’s the women who killed it.

Men in days past were chivalrous because they were good, but it was mostly because they wanted a good woman.

Being chivalrous increased their reputation amongst their social circles, increasing public approval. This was important if you were young, single and looking to marry, as it would increase the approval of getting a fine dame you fancied. This isn’t the same situation today. 

Men today know that they don’t need to do this to get the girl. The advent of the pill and the isolation of sex from marriage did give women a lot of newfound freedom, but it also made it such that men didn’t have to do as much to get sex.

Today, that has taken a wilder outlook since you don’t need to take a girl to dinner to sleep with them. The men that choose to do good to the girl with the hope of getting ‘some’ are out of luck today as their tactics are obvious to the women and they take advantage of this strategy. 

Those with less care and even lesser manners are having the time of their lives with the same women, as they are the current pick by many. So if they’re winning without being chivalrous, why do it?

Conclusion

When women speak of chivalry dying, they speak of the traditional treatment based on an ideal not followed by its creators.

But chivalry itself didn’t die. It isn’t the same chivalry you heard of either, but it’s not dead. It simply changed looks to live with the times.

It swapped the oversized three-piece suit for the t-shirt and sweatpants. It saw that it didn’t require the suit to be seen, and wore the sweatpants instead because the print is what women today like to see.

Denver B is a TV personality on the show Men’s Conference and a podcaster on the Break Time on Westside podcast which speaks on love, sex & relationships spanning over 360 episodes. You can reach him through his email [email protected]

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A man holds the door open for a woman. /YOUTUBE.YELLOW PAGES