Last Gentleman Standing

Let’s face it, Gentlemen are a breed rare enough to vouchsafe a place in an Extinct Species Museum anywhere in the world. This phenomenon is not only due to macho syndrome, inappropriate manners, or men’s collective mindset. The root cause lies, more often than not, in women’s collective mindset also known as female emancipation.

If we look at the problem historically, women have been gaining more and more rights and equalities to the point where we (women) have even become the main (or the only!) supplier of food in the family. Women nowadays even represent the head of the family or are a mother and a father for a child. They work, look after the house and the children, drive their own car, pay their own bills and leases, or to make a long story short- they manage time, money and the people in their lives. This power and self-sufficiency, however, brings with itself not only positives.

The more women insist on being independent, the less they make use of men’s strength and care. The less they make use of these qualities, the more spoiled do men get.  Their primary instincts to protect, fight for, and take care of subside. It’s a vicious circle triggered by women’s social need for appreciation.

While in the past men paying the bill in a restaurant was as natural as daylight, nowadays it seems to be more and more seldom. Why? It’s not that men don’t like taking care of women or being chivalrous, It’s just that women are constantly emulating the “I’m independent; I’ll pay my part of the bill” trait that men are becoming comfortable with the idea .  Also, with the constant bombardment from pop culture claiming that they don’t need to look after women who “pay their own fun and pay their own bills, always 50/50 in relationships” (very well put, Beyonce!) why do we question where this is all headed? We proclaim our independence and we ask where did all the men earning the bread, paying the bills, picking us up and buying us gentle flowers (for a gentle lady) go? Now tell me that isn’t double standards?

The future is gloomy when it comes to reviving what a “gentleman” used to represent. Taking up man’s role in providing for a family or building a career does not put us in a position to demand care, it rather puts us on a par with men. Instead of triggering their inner desires to protect, we trigger their competitiveness. Not that it’s bad, the more we compete, the better we get. It’s just that we need to get used to the fact that now that we’ve gained momentum, we are no longer gentle flowers who need nurturing. We are fighters.