# Women Need Manners Too



## eguanlao (Feb 15, 2005)

The twenty-something-aged women know almost nothing about manners these days, especially in Chicago, because they had very few good examples growing up. Most have wide-eyed looks when I ask, "Pardon?" or when I hold the door for them. I think they need a book to teach them that hearing "pardon" and having a door held for them is OK--that these things are actually good. The Post Institute ought to release a book entitled, "Essential Manners for Women" like their previous "Essential Manners for Men." What do you think?


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## crs (Dec 30, 2004)

eguanlao said:


> The Post Institute ought to release a book entitled, "Essential Manners for Women" like their previous "Essential Manners for Men." What do you think?


That's a fine idea, assuming:

A.) They can read

B.) Bad manners aren't what they aspire to.


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## pt4u67 (Apr 27, 2006)

Why should they. Look at what they have as public role models:
1) Brittany Spears
2) Paris Hilton 
3) Lindsay Lohan

And the list goes on. Not to mention dopey shows like "sex and the city" and the like.


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## BertieW (Jan 17, 2006)

Frankly, sometimes I think women act more boorish than men, though it's a close call.


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## rip (Jul 13, 2005)

BertieW said:


> Frankly, sometimes I think women act more boorish than men, though it's a close call.


It's not even vaguely a close call. Modern younger women are totally rewriting the book on boorish, hurtful behaviour. They have, I think with intention, carried it to new extremes.

I don't know if so-called role models like Paris Hilton, et al, are responsible for, or reflective of, this cultural phenomenon. I have an aquaintance, a 30ish young woman who models her life after "Sex and the City"; she dresses like, looks like and, most sadly, acts like Carrie Bradshaw at her worst, to the extent that I no longer want to even be around her or her friends.


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## 16128 (Feb 8, 2005)

I think it's actually their parents' fault.

I have a niece and nephew (well, almost... their mother and my brother-in-law have been dating for, oh, I don't know, eight years?) who have never responded to a Christmas gift with a thank you note or at the very least, a phone call.

I do not think they are going to grow up to either open doors for others or graciously accept same, RSVP to wedding invitations or help an elderly person pick up dropped avocados.

There are a lot of people being raised with a serious sense of selfish entitlement.


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

Two things about "the modern woman" that irk me the most:

1) You are directly behind a female exiting a door. She will let it slam in your face every time. As I always hold the door for the person behind me, I suppose I notice it more.

2) The hyper-aggressiveness of young female drivers, to the point of recklessness. They make teen age boys pale in comparison for aggression behind the wheel. My personal thesis is that men all know there is a pecking order and there are limits to their behavior; at some point someone bigger and stronger than you will give immediate physical consequences to your dangerous behavior. Young females lack this inhibition to having the sh*t beat out of them.

Just my $.02


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

Wayfarer said:


> Two things about "the modern woman" that irk me the most:
> 
> 1) You are directly behind a female exiting a door. She will let it slam in your face every time. As I always hold the door for the person behind me, I suppose I notice it more.
> 
> ...


You are right on with point #2. This week a girl in her mid to late 20s quickly cut across four lanes of traffic while talking on her cell phone. I had to hit my brakes to keep from hitting her as she cut in front of me. I gave a quick honk to let her know I was there, and she gave me the one finger wave out of her sunroof....real classy.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Sadly, I can think of few peer groups, generations, professions, ethnic, racial or religous categories where I haven't met at least one utterly classless boor I wanted to shoot in the groin with a small caliber handgun. I even confronted a shoplifter at one retail job that turned out to be a retired anglican priest. I'd add my anecdotes about broads, but in respect to the forum offer the old comment " gentlemen, there are ladies present."


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## acidicboy (Feb 17, 2006)

i have a friend who is quite a cad- going out with single women, when he himself is in a relationship. he's in his mid-30s, overweight and as hairy as austin powers, though remnants of his handsome youth still remains. anyway, he gets to go out with these young, as in early 20's, and very beautiful ladies- and at one occassion 2 best friends were even fighting who gets to bed him. i asked him what gives? aside from his "flirting ways" he mentioned that a lot of the girls he goes out with loves the way he treats them, like opening doors for them, and just being the proper gentleman that he is.


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## clothesboy (Sep 19, 2004)

Wayfarer said:


> Two things about "the modern woman" that irk me the most:
> 
> 1) You are directly behind a female exiting a door. She will let it slam in your face every time. As I always hold the door for the person behind me, I suppose I notice it more.
> 
> ...


What is the ambient temperature in hades these days? I agree with Wayfarer! I gotta rethink this position.:icon_smile_wink: And it's not just young females. For the most part women have never had to face the consequences of mouthing off.


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

clothesboy said:


> And it's not just young females. For the most part women have never had to face the consequences of mouthing off.




Except with other like minded women...hence the "catfight!"


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

clothesboy said:


> What is the ambient temperature in hades these days? I agree with Wayfarer! I gotta rethink this position.


It's about time you leave the Dark Side of the Force and follow the way of the Jedi!


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

O.K. I succumb. I was being dragged through endless confectionary shops in Solvang California one beastly hot, high school summer. For everyones enlightenment, Solvang was founded by Danes and is like Copenhagen meets Fisherman's Warf in San Francisco. It is located in Santa Ynez, home to Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch for herding young boys and hyper expensive horse properties. So I'm in this store trying to get out past two females blocking the door. " excuse me, cough EXCUSE ME!" - " Oh, your excused, sarcastic look." I passed and made an epitath. The two followed me into the next store and confronted me. There, among the chirping Black Forest cuuckoo clocks , porcelain figurines of the Danish Queen and Victor Borge albums genius struck. " NO! I've told you two I do NOT want to rent a hotel and pay you $100 to give me a sex show. Now leave me alone!."


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## Rich (Jul 10, 2005)

Wayfarer said:


> My personal thesis is that men all know there is a pecking order and there are limits to their behavior; at some point someone bigger and stronger than you will give immediate physical consequences to your dangerous behavior. Young females lack this inhibition to having the sh*t beat out of them.
> 
> Just my $.02


I agree. Courtesy was originally founded on male pecking order, while women's status among women was measured by the male who was in charge of them - father/brothers or husband. Men treated all women with courtesy and consideration, because women were dependent. Now of course all that has changed (no bad thing). However, the new rules have not yet had time to evolve fully, so we have things like women getting annoyed by men opening doors for them (courtesy confused with condescension), women aping boorish, ill-mannered men (refusal of "womanly" good manners imposed by men). Predatory sexual behaviour on the part of women (attemps to imitate men). Fighting and drunkenness (in the UK, anyway - not yet in France). There are signs that an independent women's pecking order is emerging, based on wealth and looks, but the social rules of relations with men are not yet very clear.

At one time when people were invited to a couple's house for dinner in France, it was normal practice to bring flowers for the 'hostess', who was basically in charge of the evening (and indeed of the house and everything that happened in it). Today this would be considered insulting by many successful young professional women I know, because of its implication about submission of housebound women, etc., etc.


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## guitone (Mar 20, 2005)

Number one is not just young girls, it is most woman of all ages (in my experience of having doors slam on me as I enter the Post Office with many packages a few times a week...I am great at opening my own doors and holding a door for men or women with the said packages balanced carefully. It is the men that will grab the door from me and get the next, the women always walk in, sometimes they get the next one, sometimes they let that one slam in my face..a universal problem it seems. Thank goodness it is not just me.

On number two, I think you are right.....



Wayfarer said:


> Two things about "the modern woman" that irk me the most:
> 
> 1) You are directly behind a female exiting a door. She will let it slam in your face every time. As I always hold the door for the person behind me, I suppose I notice it more.
> 
> ...


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## gordgekko (Nov 12, 2004)

BertieW said:


> Frankly, sometimes I think women act more boorish than men, though it's a close call.


No, it isn't. I've long thought that women today are some of the most savagely boorish people around. I'm not sure when many women thought they received a licence that freed them from politeness, but they are certainly making as much use of it as possible. And as someone mentioned earlier, it isn't only young women. Older woman that should know better are just as boorish.

Don't get me wrong, men are certainly hold their own but women are taking the lead.


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

pt4u67 said:


> Why should they. Look at what they have as public role models:
> 1) Brittany Spears
> 2) Paris Hilton
> 3) Lindsay Lohan
> ...


Yes ... and No:
Vera Wang
Laura Bush
Condoleeza Rice
Jeanine Pierro
Karen Hughes
Kay Bailey Hutchison
Mara Liason


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## JoshuaHManning (Sep 21, 2005)

*Maybe they think it makes them look powerful*



Alexander Kabbaz said:


> Yes ... and No:
> Vera Wang
> Laura Bush
> Condoleeza Rice
> ...


A great list Alex! I like your taste in gracious, refined women. 

I can't help but wonder how much of this boorishness is a direct effect of the culture's lack of role models and more specifically it's absolute fixation with celebrity and celebrity status.

I worry that the classic, gracious manner of conducting one's self with civility can't compete with the allure of celebrity emulation and the rush of feeling that you yourself are above the rules of society just as those you see on the screen. Add in the fact that women don't have to worry about getting thrown across an alley for rudeness, top with the misperception that rudeness means independence, stir, and you have a lovely recipe for the sort of woman we encounter all too often and would never consider going near.

I'd also bet that some of this lack of civility comes from that common misperception that rudeness equals power. I suspect that some women take the rudeness shortcut in place of, or as a caveat to, the acquisition of real power and influence. It's a poor facsimile and very transparent to seemingly all except the one exercising it.


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## Chuck Franke (Aug 8, 2003)

Alexander Kabbaz said:


> Yes ... and No:
> Vera Wang
> Laura Bush
> Condoleeza Rice
> ...


Kay Bailey goes to my church. I frequently remind Alex that we sent her to Washington, his neighborhood sent Hilary. A fact that I offer sans comment simply to torture and annoy the Great Uncuddly One..

As to the original subject there is confusion these days. I was raised that a man should hold the door, stand when a lady at the table does etcetera, etcetera.

In my brief foray into the dating world after my divorce and prior to somehow tricking Jill into sticking around it was really.... odd. On one date a friend set me up with a woman who barked at me for opening the door for her - she told me that she was a strong, independent (yawn) capable and equal person who did not need the door opened for her. After dinner the look on her face when I told her what her half of the check came to was priceless as I did not wish to further offend her personhood ...or whatever the hell it was.

Jill stays on her pedestal and had absolutely no interest in taking the backward step toward equality.

We have no gender role confusion here - our agreement is that I treat her like a princess and she refrains from slicing my carotid artery while I sleep. ...traditional roles actually.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

I was in an english Lit class with a rather strident feminist wth an uncanny resemblance to Barbra Streisand. She had a hyphenated name after union with her lesbian lover. I explained in the class hyphenated names were first used for the illegitimate children of royalty.MZ Goldfarb- Hakaguchi was turning apopleptic blue as I further explained opening doors for women to pass through first was a Venetian custom to foil stilleto ( not the shoes she also equated with chinese footbinding) wielding assassins. I finished off destroying her analysis of Steven Crane's THE OPEN BOAT as metaphor for class stratification by explaining the practical seating of such a small vessel. The teacher brought up Titanic. I pointed out the custom of women and children first was born of that tragedy, and oh by the way, the man who disguised himself as a woman was from steerage and not the first class deck as popularly shown in both movies.


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

Kav said:


> I was in an english Lit class with a rather strident feminist wth an uncanny resemblance to Barbra Streisand. She had a hyphenated name after union with her lesbian lover. I explained in the class hyphenated names were first used for the illegitimate children of royalty.MZ Goldfarb- Hakaguchi was turning apopleptic blue as I further explained opening doors for women to pass through first was a Venetian custom to foil stilleto ( not the shoes she also equated with chinese footbinding) wielding assassins. I finished off destroying her analysis of Steven Crane's THE OPEN BOAT as metaphor for class stratification by explaining the practical seating of such a small vessel. The teacher brought up Titanic. I pointed out the custom of women and children first was born of that tragedy, and oh by the way, the man who disguised himself as a woman was from steerage and not the first class deck as popularly shown in both movies.


 Nice. :icon_hailthee:


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## Albert (Feb 15, 2006)

Splendid threat. I couldn't agree more.


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