Shut up and listen to me!

[Calud]

I can understand the men wanting to carry heavy shit for women thing. I was raised to be respectful and "gentleman like" whatever the fudge that actually means

But my folks taught me the following:
Man walks on side of woman closest to the street.
Man Opens door for woman
Man kills spiders and various other creepy crawly buggies at womans request.
Man carry's heavy shit for woman (not because woman can't, but because thats how man was raised).

And my boy will be raised the same way, not to be a sexist, but to be respectful.

Now the men who won't take advice from women are just idiot douche bags, and the men who can't realize that some women are hella strong and can probably lift that "insert heavy object here" with out a problem are idiots.

Same here.

It's not, we think you can't do it, we're just raised that way.

Just like you stand up for old people, when they get on the bus.

[blas]

The little old ladies that watch the self checkouts at Wal-Mart ALWAYS ask me if I need another cart or help getting my stuff out to my car.

I may be a pint sized little girl, but trust me, I wouldn't buy all this shit if I didn't think I couldn't handle it. Plus, it's not like I'm going to take it all upstairs and into my apartment in one trip!

[air914]

Ooh Bellsouth tech DOES suck. Sorry to anyone who may work there, but I've rarely encountered an intelligent person working there. And I HATE that the Internet goes out in some places when it rains...... yes it does and I do not understand it. But they were lousy at customer service and couldn't ever fix a problem I had.

I'm w/ Insight now and that hasn't been a ton better - but just enough better so that I don't go back to Bellsouth. Although we lost Internet for almost 2 weeks because they were fixing something...... supposedly.... and they had this irritating message everytime you tried to call and you couldn't get to a person w/out waiting on hold for almost half an hour - and then they'd tell you they couldn't help you....... in the end, we got free Internet for a month b/c I complained so much about the hassel. (I wasn't an SC - they were really stupid - they even put out this awful commercial that was just an insult about how they were "sorry" and it just irritated me. I simply stated my frustrations without yelling or screaming and stated that I would like a free month of service - I didn't demand it, but stated that I felt it would be appropriate)

[symposes]

Anyone ever offer to help someone carry something, and they go balistic?
I dont mean like, "Nah You cant handle it either" kind of balistic.
But the kind of balistic you might see after a clueless man said something sexist to a hardcore feminist?

Situations like, You hold the door for a lady, and she calls you every name in the book...
etc.

Makes me wonder how lonely they are/will be... shrug

[Rapscallion]

"I'm not holding the door open because you're a lady. I'm doing it because I'm a gentleman."

Remember that one - it great to drop jaws.

Rapscallion

[Gurndigarn]

One of my friends is female family practice doctor. When she started her career in the early 1980's, women doctors were a lot less common. Her first day on the job she was the only doctor in the clinic. A male patient with chest pain refused to see her, tried to drive himself to the hospital, and died 5 blocks from her clinic.

Too bad they couldn't put "moronic level of sexism" on his death certificate.

Gah. I recently saw a male dentist, and a male oral surgeon.

I found both lacking. The next availible dentist on my approved list was female... and I was much more pleased with her skill and chairside manners.

[lordlundar]

Does "AAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!!!!!!!!111!!!" count as a "request"?

not to me. that's an open evil invite, where I have some fun.

Man walks on side of woman closest to the street.

That's actually a reversal to Victorian etiquette. The man would walk on the inside of the sidewalk, so that when people on the second story would toss their trash out the window in a vain attempt to get it on the street, the woman would get soiled.

Just a little trivia tidbit there.

[mischugenah]

And my boy will be raised the same way, not to be a sexist, but to be respectful.

There's a line between respectful and patronizing, and it's about the same line as between being an Older Gentleman flirting with the younger women, and being a dirty old man. A respectful guy politly asks "Can I help you with that?" and if he's turned down leaves it alone. A jerk takes the heavy object from you and says "Give me that, that's too big for a little thing like you to carry" or something similar. I think the other thing is, women working in retail know what their job is, and they know if they need help or not. By assuming they don't know their own strength, you're basically saying 'I don't think you can do your job.'

I often had the same problem when working at the hospital. I'm 6'0" and 120 lbs. You can imagine what I look like. Not a day went by that someone (not the nurses, they knew) would tell me to be careful or that I shouldn't be doing something because I'm obviously not strong enough. I'd shake my head and say "You can't work here and not be stronger than I look."

[MadMike]

A male patient with chest pain refused to see her, tried to drive himself to the hospital, and died 5 blocks from her clinic.

Too bad they couldn't put "moronic level of sexism" on his death certificate.

Darwined himself, did he?

[Sliceanddice]

My grandfather felt it was his duty to teach my brother and my cousin Josh how to be gentlemen. But Josh was only three months older than me and my brother two years younger so i was often with them.

So i always open doors for others, and hold them open. I carry things for others. I walk closer to the street when i walk with someone else.
The only thing he tried to teach me i never retained was "How to be a lady on a date" didn't seem like something i needed to know.

I'd rather be a gentlemen.

[Andara Bledin]

Ooh Bellsouth tech DOES suck. Sorry to anyone who may work there, but I've rarely encountered an intelligent person working there. And I HATE that the Internet goes out in some places when it rains...... yes it does and I do not understand it. But they were lousy at customer service and couldn't ever fix a problem I had.

I can tell you why it goes out when it rains because I had that same exact problem.

Bad wires.

The first response should have been a line test. That would have told them that there was a problem in the line somewhere, and they would then offer to send a tech, and if it was outside, they'd fix it, and if it was inside, they'd charge $50 for the visit, and then tell you how much it would be to fix it.

We got lucky. When the tech showed up, he'd already replaced the wiring in question. He told us that at a guess, he'd say the wiring was older than he was, and he was in his mid-30s. Why they didn't check the wiring further up the line when they replaced all of the wires that came from the pole to the house (also ancient) several years before, I couldn't tell you.

I often had the same problem when working at the hospital. I'm 6'0" and 120 lbs. You can imagine what I look like. Not a day went by that someone (not the nurses, they knew) would tell me to be careful or that I shouldn't be doing something because I'm obviously not strong enough. I'd shake my head and say "You can't work here and not be stronger than I look."

Hospital people are strong. My grandmother was a nurse, and she'd have to do spongebaths and change bedding for bedridden patients. You need a lot of strength to maneuver another person who is a whole lot of not-quite-dead weight.

I get up for less physically able people on the bus. I hold doors open for other people (male or female). I'll offer to help with lifting heavy things. Chivalry, originally, was a code of conduct for all aspects of behavior, not just this "be nicer to women" stuff people tout these days. I prefer to be nicer to everyone.

^-.-^