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Chivalry

  • I admit it is better fun to punt than to be punted, and that a desire to have all the fun is nine-tenths of the law of chivalry.

  • Chivalry, I don't abuse you, / Not at all — the only rub / Is that those who praise you, use you / Very often as a club.

  • It is always difficult for a woman to be grateful for a form of chivalry that seems to be based on the premise that she is a moron.

  • [Addressing her male readers:] You are not our protectors. ... If you were, who would there be to protect us from?

    • Mary Walker,
    • 1871, in Charles McCool Snyder, Dr. Mary Walker ()
  • Respect for woman, the much lauded chivalry of the Middle Ages, meant what I fear it still means to some men in our own day — respect for the elect few among whom they expect to consort.

  • Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women ...

  • There are countless thousands of truly chivalrous men, who have the true chivalry whose foundation is justice ... 'Let us give women a fair deal!'

  • ... chivalry is a poor substitute for justice, if one cannot have both. Chivalry is something like the icing on the cake, sweet but not nourishing.

  • Chivalry is like a line of credit. You can get plenty of it when you do not need it.

  • It's odd that men feel they must protect women, since for the most part they must be protected from men.

  • In society it is etiquette for ladies to have the best chairs and get handed things. In the home the reverse is the case. That is why ladies are more sociable than gentlemen.

  • A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.

  • [On Jane Addams:] At that time men tended to place women of her cultivated tastes on a pedestal, and it seems likely that she had great difficulty in distinguishing the difference between a pedestal and a shelf.

  • A pedestal is as much a prison as any other small space.

    • Anonymous,
    • in Gloria Steinem, Moving Beyond Words ()