bruss -
In all due respect back to you Sir (and that IS a sign of respect, and NOT me calling you and old phart, btw)...
men in our current culture are assumed to be lecherous dogs much more broadly than they are presumed to be chivalrous gentlemen.
An entirely false assumption for the most of us that we should nourish and act as if it were true? Not I.
In a small town where everyone knows each other at least by reputation, even strangers may be given the benefit of the doubt.
Okay...given that you give "towns" of three hundred thousand or so "small town" designation. I don't. And I can assure you, that going across town and running into an acquaintance is only slightly more likely than running into one in O'Hare airport (which oddly enough, I have done). IOW, I don't know most of the people and they don't know me. It is doubly so now that I have moved to a REAL small town and only travel to the larger city I used to live in perhaps a couple of times a month. I should mention that I do frequent other metropolitan areas of approximately the same size on about the same level of frequency.
But most people these days live in busy urban and or suburban areas where a person won't know 99 out 100 people they pass in a day's time.
See above.
Giving them all the benefit of the doubt would be tempting fate. I agree that's a shame, but it's a sad commentary on our modern life.
No, it's a paranoic's view of modern life that a man who is holding a door for someone in a well populated public place is any more of a threat than a man who might be shopping the same aisle as someone else is. Want us to check our manhoods at the door? Castration before admission to Dillards?
"I'm so sorry..err (almost called you "Sir")...you'll have to leave your penis and any risidual testorone in your system at the front desk before you can enter."
Sheesh.
If you don't see why a young lady would think that an unknown male might "hold a door" for her as a ruse to walk behind her to either ogle her behind as she walks or to watch where she goes, follow her, etc. then I don't know what to say.
If that young (or even not so young) lady is in a public place and thinks that anyone who might want to ogle her NEEDS to hold a door for her in order to do so, then no sir, you indeed do not know what to say. That I can agree with. The same goes for "following her around" etc. No one need hold a door for the sake of being polite to accomplish ANY of these goals.
And although I didn't create this situation, nor did you, we all have to live with the reality of it.
I don't have to do any such thing. As I said, if it offends anyone that I am being polite, they can declare themselves, and I can promise you polite will cease immediately.
Also, don't be offended if you get into an elevator alone, then turn and see a young lady running to catch it so you hold the door for her, and suddenly she balks when she realizes she'd be getting into an elevator alone with an unknown male.
That, Sir, is a strawman argument. I never said that I expected a woman - young or otherwise - to place herself in a position that might imperil her in any shape, fashion, or form. It would never cross my mind to be offended should a female not want to ride in an elevator with an unknown man, even if I were that unknown man. Nor would I expect her to make idle chit-chat in a dark alley or an abandoned parking garage. Holding an entrance door to a public place, or saying "ma'am" or "sir" in any setting hardly rises to the level of threat however.
That's just not good judgement for a woman these days unless she's packing heat. A "courtesy" so offered, might be a ruse for a trap. Don't laugh, it's happened.
Heat or not, it's not good judgement, but unfortunately, as I said, a strawman argument. I taught my own daughter the same as you describe above.
People like to pride themselves on being a good judge of character, yet how many times have we heard of some heinous criminal finally being caught and all of his neighbors and co-workers claim "I can't believe it, he was so nice, so normal... etc." Playing it safe these days means hoping for the best, but expecting the worst from people.
There is no way that "the worst" can arise from a man holding a door for someone at the entrance of a public place, or saying "ma'am" or "sir" as a show of respect. As a matter of fact, I think in the case of my dear sweet waitress - who was obviously a geographic bigot - the use of "ma'am" in the sincere manner I did it was a show of much more respect than she had earned. If calling her "ma'am" again insulted her on my way out of the door, then I really hate that. Could have been a more contemporary "urban" male and called her several other unsavory names, but I was not raised that way.