Chauvinism or Manners….?

Chauvinism – in my belief, is a very misconstrued and ill used word. It is a word, which is more often than not, used to describe the superior attitude of men towards women. Certain recent events have got me thinking about this, and I have been trying to figure out how something more basic may be the root cause of chauvinistic behaviour.

My first experience of this was at university. Like a lot of students, we moved around in a pack of 10-12 people; as part of our group, we had 2 tomboys girls who were always hung around us guys. Being the reasonably mannered guys that almost each one of us were, we always held the door open for the girls (and guys) to pass through. However, the girls used to often remark on how they didn’t “need” our efforts with the doors and were more than capable to handle it themselves. This was quite surprising because it was something simple, and you wouldn’t think of it as something to give them a reason to raise a ‘concern’. They were not “feminists” as such to go loopy about this, but were quite adamant in their opposition of someone holding the doors open for them. I really wonder what their reaction would be if someone let the door slam in their faces as they approached it.

We have an idea of how the term chauvinism is used in daily life, but what is it’s actual definition? Well, The Free Dictionary states it as “Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one’s own gender, group, or kind”

Another example, is one which I frequently moan about – people on the road. I hate it when people don’t practice good road behaviour at the best of times, but everyone knows that it gets worse when women are driving on the road. Male drivers get more aggressive or abusive when a woman is involved on the road. We often see a very different choice of decisions from male drivers when they encounter women drivers; I think it is fair to say that male drivers generally demonstrate more intimidating behaviour around women on the road.

I have noticed similar behaviours with clients at work, whereby the male colleague overruled his female colleague purely (in my opinion) because he is more intimidating in his speech. The fact that he is incorrect in his logic didn’t matter to him; he forced his thoughts over his colleagues.

I think the point is – sure, we notice these occurrences when it happens across genders, but by definition chivalry is defined as prejudiced belief in the superiority of one’s own gender, group, or kind. More often than not we notice certain scenarios but do not associate the “right” terminology against it. The reason why I have raised this topic is because I noticed some level of “bullying” at work. It wasn’t quite bullying per se, but it was the imposition of authority by one colleague on another based on her “greater” experiences.

Chivalry happens in daily live but we don’t notice it. The dominating nature within the same group of people – female boss over female team members, older kid to younger kid on a playground, intimidating personality over a more timid personality – each of these instances demonstrate hints of chivalry; it is not required for it to be demonstrated across the sexes, more over it frequents more often than not amongst equal members of a particular group.

The one thing which drives this type of behaviour has got to be manners. We live in an age where simple manners do no have a lot of value, we choose to select certain standards of personal conduct to enforce our reasoning. The lack of appreciation of manners – simple manners, makes us behave in such a way that like minded humans are now branded as superior or inferior.

So really – chauvinism is just a tag branded around, the real issue could be our mannerism towards people. However, living in this age of the ‘survival of the fittest’, wouldn’t you say that chauvinism is justified?

**UPDATE** Checkout HFM’s thoughts on this – t’is awesome!

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