Lately, I’ve been noticing that all of my lady friends have been complaining a lot about us men of today. We don’t do the traditional things: opening doors, proper date etiquette, etc. To sum it all up, the word is that chivalry is dead *cues in dramatic mystery music*. The traditional gentlemen-manners have gone missing from our male DNA….but who is to blame?

An organization called Hollaback is aiming to stop street harassment. The non-profit organization did a very interesting (and at some points, kind of disturbing) experiment to highlight harassment from men on the streets of New York. They sent a woman to walk around the city with a hidden camera to capture the verbal harassment she endured on her 10 hour journey. Some of the comments were down-right inappropriate and disturbing (One guy followed her around for five minutes…CREEPY!). On the other hand, most of the comments were a simple “Good morning, Beautiful”, “How are you?”, “Smile!”… Really? So has chivalry really become a lost art? Or has the new age woman ran it into hiding?

I think I can speak for all men when I say that it is even harder to grab a woman’s attention in today’s world due to the surplus of disrespectful scumbags and now due to the fear of being considered “thirsty”. Today’s women have taken the term and meaning and multiplied it by a million. Men are scared to even give a woman a compliment because, like with the Hollaback experiment, we will be tagged as thirsty or it may be seen as harassment. The simple gestures like opening doors or carrying a woman’s heavy luggage can appear to some women as a bid to get into her bedroom rather than a helpful hand. Instead of a simple thank you, most men get slapped with the creep/loser/thirsty charge instead.

I know it most be so hard to be called beautiful and be admired everyday *Sarcasm*, so should us men just stop approaching women on the streets? Would you rather go unnoticed stepping out of the hair salon with your new do or out to a party in your new dress? If there were a gang of Idris Elba’s or Chris Brown’s who approached you like in the video, would it still be harassment?

It may be that harassment/thirst is more of a double-standard law that ultimately comes down to appearance. I do think this is valid in some cases. Your personal appearance and demeanor should be taken into consideration when making that move. Some of the guys in the video looked like they deserved every bit of shade she passed out. For the others with, what seemed to be, good demeanor and appropriate comments, I have to question the hefty harassment label.

Could it be that the same species that are asking for chivalry are the very ones who destroyed it themselves or am I just tripping? Do you think that Hollaback is taking things to far or solving a major issue? Ladies (and “gentlemen”) , let me know what’s your take on this topic.