Wednesday, August 29, 2007

He wasn't what I wanted, what I thought now. He wouldn't even open up the door

Whenever someone makes an argument about equal rights, he/she always counterpoints with "Women can't have it both ways. If they want a job with an equal salary, they have to open their own doors."

And there oh-so-many ways I could go with this ... so I'm going to cut straight to the point.

I like it when men open doors for me. -- It shocks the hell out of me everytime.

I'm not sure if the men from my generation do that anymore. I know in my entire family, I've never seen a man open a door for his wife, girlfriend or daughter--unless of course their arms were full of stuff. Even then, another woman would open the door or she'd set the stuff down and do it themselves.

When I worked at the station, I know Pat never opened a door for me. But that's okay, he wanted to toughen me up. I would have never let him open a door for me either--because we had that type of working relationship.

And I pretty sure none of the guys I've dated have open doors, I woulda thought I would remember that.

The older (and when I say that, I mean older that me, so 30's and above) men I've worked with always open doors for me. Like I said, it floors me. They quicken their step when I step through to make sure they get to the next door before me. Wow. I wonder if I hurt their ego when I open doors for them?

I'm an equal opportunities person. You can do whatever you want to do as long it doesn't hurt, belittle or degrade someone else. If a woman wants to stay home with her children, that's perfectly fine. Just don't scoff at another mother who can't make that decision or doesn't make that same decision for herself. And so on and so forth. There's plenty of examples about challenging traditional roles of society that I'm not going to touch on.

When a man opens a door for me he's just that--a man. A gentleman. He's smart, has manners, is polite and was raised right.

If you don't open the door...well I'm not going to write you off as a jerk, but I'm not going to be as impressed.

Think about that.

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