Just let the boy open the door for you

I hear a lot of people decrying feminism as a ball-busting, man-hating, female-superiority philosophy. I personally prefer to identify as humanist, since feminist does seem rather exclusive to me - the word makes it sound like only females can identify as feminists, when we all know that isn't true. And I can see why people might have gained that opinion about feminists, given how some of our sisters tend to act about guys in general.

Case in point - I was walking around campus with a girlfriend of mine, heading to the cafeteria for dinner. As we approached, we saw a couple also approaching the doors ahead of us. The guy reached out in front of the girl, grabbed the door, and held it open for her. The girl promptly turned and said, "Don't open doors for me! I can open doors myself!" in quite a harsh tone of voice. I can predict how my readers will react - one of two ways, based on how my friend and I reacted.

I said: How rude, he was only being polite. This is how half of my readership will react.

My friend said: Sing it, sistah! This is how the other half of my readership will react.

The point of my post is not to play "Which one's the feminist?" because as I previously stated, although I choose to identify myself as humanist rather than feminist, my ideals are roughly in line with feminism regardless of the label I choose to throw myself under, and you can hardly say my friends isn't a feminist for agreeing with the girl in this situation. The point of this post is to examine the following things:

1. Why did the boy open the door for the girl?
2. Why did the girl get offended?
3. What does this have to do with feminism?

1. Why did the boy open the door for the girl?

The girl was not carrying anything. They were both the same distance away from the door - in fact, the boy had to reach across her to grab the door handle. It was not raining, they didn't appear to be in a hurry, nobody was coming out of the door at that moment. So... why bother?

There are two possible reasons - because he honestly thinks she can't get the door for herself (which... you know, there are some Evil Misogynists out there, but not that many), or because he knows she can open the door for herself but wants to do it for her anyway.

Again, why? Why would he want to go out of his way to do something for someone else that he knows is perfectly capable of doing for themselves?

Maybe because... he's trying to be nice? If you look at the above sentence, you'll notice that it's kind of the definition of being nice for no other reason than being nice. After all, this is not just a guy-and-girl situation. Guys sometimes hold the door for other guys, girls hold it for girls, sometimes girls even hold the door for guys! I once had one of my guy friends explain that it was a respect thing - he knew I was capable of opening the door for myself (or bringing my own umbrella on a rainy day, or opening the car door), and that's exactly why he wanted to do it for me.

This, on the surface, doesn't seem to make any sense. In order for it to make sense, we have to examine the traditional role of the gentleman, and on another level the man, in society. I'm not saying that any of these views are correct, and indeed many of them are outdated, but their vestiges are what creates this dilemma. See, in less "civilized" and "politically correct" times, man was the breadwinner and woman was the caretaker. It's the way society functioned - primarily because it is a basic truth of human biology that men are physically stronger than women. Thus, in a time period that revolved mostly around hunting for your food and protecting your territory from other humans that wanted it, naturally men did the hunting and protecting and women did everything else. The logical breakdown unfortunately devolved into a cultural structure that our society is still trying to break free of, but the foundation is based in biology and makes a great deal of sense.

But, as I've pointed out, we have become more "civilized," and through this more "politically correct" (how I hate that term). Men are no longer required to hunt for their own food - that's what supermarkets are for - and modern weaponry and martial arts makes it possible for women to protect just as well as men can, even if they aren't physically as strong or stronger. There goes the traditional male role in society! Women can work as hard and as long as they can, are just as smart as they are, just as well-trained, successful, etc as they are. And since our instincts and biology don't evolve quite as fast as our society, modern men are sometimes left with a bewildering feeling of uselessness. They intellectually know that there's still a place for them in society, and that women are hardly going to throw them in the house and declare that it's improper for them to come out (although there would be some poetic justice to that), but they still feel somewhat emasculated.

Thus, holding the door open. It's one of the things they can still do that is generally perceived as polite, nice, and won't get them yelled at - mostly. It makes them feel useful in a society that's telling them a lot of the time that they've outlived their usefulness. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad transition, but it's still a transition - until the instincts get bred out, a lot of guys are still going to feel that way.

So that's why he's holding the door, and why he wants to hold the door. Which brings us to-

2. Why did the girl get offended?

This one is much easier - she's offended for the very same reason that the guy feels obligated, but she's coming from the opposite perspective.

The unfortunate devolution of that logical breakdown I mentioned earlier, the one that our society is still trying to break free of, is what we call misogyny. Because women were physically weaker, they began to be seen as mentally weaker. And then emotionally weaker. And then generally incapable of doing anything at all that wasn't cooking, cleaning, having children and in some cases managing an estate or "appropriate" feminine trade (such as dressmaking or midwifery, and that's about it if we're talking middle ages). It's an attitude that persisted all the way into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and one that still persists in some parts of the world. So it makes sense that even today women are a little touchy about having things done for them, because sometimes they perceive that "for them" as a throwback to the old views of "for them, because they can't."

This, also, is a natural transition between our old society's rules and our new society's rules. In this case, however, us girls aren't fighting our biology. We've always been instinctually aware that we were as smart, emotionally strong, capable and (possibly) successful as our male counterparts. It was just societal conditioning that repressed that biology. Which was why women were so often vocally discontent with their lot. There are examples way back through the centuries, far before more "civilized" times, of women throwing society's construction out the window and following their biology. Now our society matches our biology... at the expense of making the boys' society mismatch their biology. In the long run, this is definitely the better scenario.

But we do have to recognize that the fight for gender equality still has a long way to go. The fight may had shifted fronts over the years, from suffrage and employment equality to the current fronts of sexual education, abuse awareness and pay equality, but the fight rages on. And a battle, even one of ideas and words rather than guns and tanks, gets people's backs up and awakens a good deal of anger, usually on both sides. The definition of equality and the definition of gender roles is tenuous at best and entirely confusing at worst, which is why some girls tend to take a "when in doubt, act as if you have had your rights infringed upon" attitude, because unfortunately that is the case in many situations. Just not in this one.

Which brings me to
3. What does this have to do with feminism?

It has to do with feminism becoming, in some instances, one-sided, retaliatory and conflict-oriented. Feminism is not meant to make guys feel inferior, degraded or evil. It's meant to make girls feel equal, uplifted and empowered. Notice I didn't say superior, because that is not what feminism is. This is another reason why I prefer to identify as humanist rather than feminist - the word "feminist" feels far to female-centric. We don't want girls to be the center of the world, like guys used to be the center of the world. We want to be on equal footing.

But since guys did used to be the center of the world, and because we are still involved in a "battle" that gets people's backs up, feminism frequently overcompensates. This is where it gets its reputation as a ball-busting, man-hating philosophy. This kind of overcompensation puts guys on the defensive (I am not a rapist! It's stupid to say that every guy is potentially a rapist! I would never rape someone! How dare you accuse me of thinking about doing something like that!), and when someone goes on the defensive they tend to be unwilling to listen to reason, which puts our whole argument back to square one.

Girls, he does not open the door to make you feel inadequate. He doesn't do it because he thinks you can't - at least, most of the time, but if he really is the kind of idiot who thinks you incapable of opening a door, I guarantee you will soon find out and stop hanging out with him. Unless he's a random stranger, in which case there's no harm, no foul - but I digress. He does it because it makes him feel needed and useful. he does it to be nice. You don't have to yell at him for being nice - save your energy in case he really does do something misogynist, like imply you don't want to go hunting because you have a vagina or something. Note: This does not apply if you really don't like to hunt. There is nothing more annoying than having someone pull this conversation on you:

Boy: I'm going hunting with the guys.
Girl: What, am I not invited?
Boy: ...Well, I figured you wouldn't want to go.
Girl: Why do you say that? Because I'm a girl?
Boy: What? No! I just thought - because you hate going camping - sorry. Do you want to go?
Girl: No, I hate hunting!

Gah! If you hate it, why do you feel the need to call him on not inviting you? But then, I digress again. There are some things we should be fighting over (like there still being a stigma about girls playing with "boy's toys" or vice versa) and some things we should just accept as the modern remains of chivalry. With so many guys out there who truly are assholes, why do you feel the need to jump on the few who are doing something nice for you?

In conclusion: Just let the boy open the door for you.