Last week, I was walking towards the Miller Learning Center accompanied by a male friend of mine. When we got close to the entrance, he nearly sprinted to the door to open it for me. I couldn’t help laughing out loud. I looked at him and said, “I appreciate you opening the door, but I can open the door, too.”

Bianca Strosnider

Chivalry should no longer be about men feeling obligated to do certain things for women. Since I was raised in California by parents from the northeastern and western United States, my parents taught me how being polite to other people and treating everyone as your equal are nice things to do. However, when I moved to Georgia, I found that the concept of chivalry was seemingly required — and a one-way street.

In an environment that holds southern hospitality as high in the ranking of importance as sweet tea, I noticed that parents ordered their sons from a young age to do certain things for women. The males of this society were told to open doors for women, pay for the meal when on a date and provide for their wives and families later on.

My classmates found this typical of their southern heritage, but it caused me to feel uncomfortable. If I am walking into a building to study with a friend, I do not expect him to open the door for me. At that point, it seemed like opening the door for a female was a programmed habit for males.

Men should want to act chivalrous when they care for a woman instead of feeling obligated to perform certain tasks that they have been brainwashed to do. Little acts of kindness such as buying a girl flowers, taking her out to dinner or calling just because you want to talk to her seem much more chivalrous than doing things repetitively because someone told you that you should.

A friend recently pointed out to me that although her boyfriend always opened doors for her, those were not the moments that reminded her of how much he cared about her. Instead, she fondly looked upon the Wednesdays in her last spring semester when she had classes all morning and worked all afternoon. Since she had such a busy schedule that day, her boyfriend proposed having Wednesday nights as their date nights so she would not have to worry about dinner when she already had so much going on.

To me, this act exemplified chivalry. He clearly cared so much about his girlfriend that he went above and beyond to take time out of his Wednesdays and make plans with her. If he had felt obligated to designate a night as a date-night, their Wednesdays would most likely end up feeling more like a chore than a release from the stresses of their weeks.

Chivalry should be taught as a way to show a woman how much you care about her and respect her, not as a list of requirements that you have been programmed to fulfill since childhood. The small and thoughtful things you can do while in a relationship are much more telling than an action as simple as opening a door.

— Bianca Strosnider is a junior from Sandy Springs majoring public relations