On being a Gentleman

A GENTLEMAN
He treats everyone with respect. He treats himself with respect.

Being a gentleman is an attitude. It is an attitude about life. It is also a behavior, which can be learned and acted out. But, for a man to be a true GENTLEMAN he must have nearly an innate attitude about WOMANHOOD that respects the life giving and nurturing/caring qualities of WOMEN as well as the strong nature and fundamental vulnerability (meaning openness not weakness) to intuition. He must respect women for their basic human nature and realize his own limitations as they pertain to home and family. Lets Face it, women carry the fundamental building blocks of both power and life as well as compassion. Today we have made that task more difficult. It seems to me that we have denigrated the human qualities of womanhood to the point where many women do not respect their own womanhood. I think it is entirely possible that these issues are many of those that lie at the heart of what is wrong in society today.

Respect for our own humanity.

This portion is copied from the book The Circle by: George J. Stewart

\"The de-flowering of womanhood has caused nearly irreparable damage to the self-respect and human dignity of woman. In truth, this virtual castration of women has led to the disrespect for humanity that permeates our society today. The increase in violent crimes against women by a dysfunctional male population is directly the result of this attitude as is the nearly five thousand percent increase in female prison population in recent years.

The basic function of humanity at its most instinctive level is to survive long enough to rear our young. We should rear them in such a manner as to repeat the cycles of life on into the future. The most important thing we as humans do is give the gift of the future to our young.

The completion of our task as humans allows us to have self-respect and human dignity. With the de-valuing of womanhood we have not made important those human tasks. Any society that does not allow half of its population the human right of self-dignity is on the path of self-destruct. I have heard it said that we must have more matriarchal leadership in order to have a more humane society. I think that may be so...

If you really think about such issues as the doomsday environmental issues...and the overpopulation scare (which as it turns out, was only that, a scare) and the abortion /feminists movement (get a job, be somebody, which has concerned itself with ways other than being a mother for women to have value) we have lowered the human value of womanhood and the human race. When we realize as a society that women have always been in control of not only their own lives but in control of the entire human race, then we will find what is really valuable in Life. There has not been a thing worth doing in the entire history of mankind that has not been done for or because of women and family. There are a number of things that were not worth doing and that are still being done in the name of women and family.

As you read this you may be thinking that I got “off message?

I see the problems in our society as one inclusive of another. Being a GENTLEMAN is an attitude, that attitude is affected by the course of the country as it relates to home and family as well as the roles of men and women. In the same manor as the head bone is connected to the neck bone, etc. etc. there is a connection between our having respect for our own humanity and human dignity and our attitudes about how we relate to one another in our every day lives.\"

This begs the question of all...what do you think? What is the definition of a Gentleman? What virtues might a Gentleman embody throughout their daily lives? And oh so many more questions I'm hoping are obvious. What do you think? and people, lets remember that this is a discussion, not a fight. We can speak with considered thoughts and still maintain a thorough discussion. MTFBWYA

\"My father told me that if you saw a man in a Rolls Royce you could be sure he was not a gentleman unless he was the chauffeur.\"

Earl of Arran

I would go so far as to say that being a gentleman is a matter of education and not a birth right. It is an attitude, a way of life, a social awareness and a philosophy of life. A gentleman is tactful in his approach and defensive in his stance. Since a gentleman shows respect to social norms, this does not make him necessarily a moral pilar.

Being a gentleman...........for the most part in today's society, a dead art, sad as it is. We, (the we being guys), fail to take into consideration the impact that women have in life today. It's not like several decades ago, when men did the working, and women did the homefront maintenance i.e. raising the family, cooking the meals, taking care of daily household chores etc. Women demanded equality in the late 60's and early 70's, not just for voting, but for all things, employment and the like. A very noble crusade, unfortunately, it gave men an opening to start treating them as equals, instead of as Ladies, when they should have been treated as both.

This is going to sound like a sexist remark, and it's not, just to clarify this before I post further. I think, that a woman, being the bearer of the children, should stay at home, and the husband/boyfriend, should be the one doing the work. Why? Because that's just one of the many things that women are better at than men, notice I said \"One of many\".
They have better ways of getting through to children, they have more drive to clean up the living areas, and take care of the domestic duties. We men, are, in comparison, brutish, and are better adapted to doing the income earning in the outside world. Now, I'm not saying women can't, far from it, I just think that it would be better to have the woman at home taking care of that aspect of life.

Unfortunately again in this day and age, that is not always possible. What with the lowest income to be considered even Low-Middle class being 40K a year, it just can't be done unless you have the good fortune to either win the lottery, or have a serious break in luck to get one of the high end jobs out there, so it makes it hard to be a Gentleman in this day and age..........Or so we've made that to be one of our excuses.

Women are should be held in the highest regard possible because they are better at a lot of things than men. In a family picture, children respond better to the women than the men, they learn faster, and more when being taught/raised by the mother. Men, we're just the modern day equivalent to cavemen, and are better at the disciplining part of the relationship.

Women deserve to be treated with the utmost care and respect in all aspects of life, because they put up with so much more crap from everyone than men do. They are the mother's, the Goddess, the bearer's of life, and ultimately, the true future of mankind. We as men need to get in touch with that feminine aspect that we all have, and live in a woman's shoes for just one day, guaranteed you WILL find a new respect for women, and possibly get started down the path to being a gentleman, and you may not even realize it.

MTFBWY

Without trying to sound problematic, these arguements sound very apologetic. Certainly they are necessary, but only because there still remains a great injustice for women in society as a whole. For example, here in Germany women are very often paid less than men for the same work. If women were considered in their basic human rights as men, none of this would be necessary. This problem does not even apply only to women but to the elderly, ethnic groups, children, countries... . The question which should be adressed is \"what on earth is the problem with us?\" A woman can not even be grouped into the catagory \"women\", but for justice to be done sould be considered in their feminine individuality.

Jon wrote:

Without trying to sound problematic, these arguements sound very apologetic. Certainly they are necessary, but only because there still remains a great injustice for women in society as a whole. For example, here in Germany women are very often paid less than men for the same work. If women were considered in their basic human rights as men, none of this would be necessary. This problem does not even apply only to women but to the elderly, ethnic groups, children, countries... . The question which should be adressed is \"what on earth is the problem with us?\" A woman can not even be grouped into the catagory \"women\", but for justice to be done sould be considered in their feminine individuality.

LOL, well Hans I am an Apologetician. But you all new that already.

Well Master Tom someone has to be apologetic! Hehehe!

Jon wrote:

Well Master Tom someone has to be apologetic! Hehehe!

I'm Sorry! LOL

\"An apology is a good way to have the last word.\" (lol)

Author Unknown

Everything I know about being a gentleman I learned from two people. My grandfather and my first girlfriend's father, with whom I am still very close to til this day. They both hammered the hows and whys into me like a blacksmith working a piece of iron. I owe them both more than I could ever hope to repay if I ever could. Both were/are southern gentlemen in ever sense of the word.

To be a gentleman in the social sense of the term, requires someone else who accepts this behaviour. For example: a close friend of mine (an adult) while I was still going to school, opened the train door to let another Lady on first. This Lady, to my shock, spat on him and said that she was no cripple and needed no help. After this he was very careful about opening doors for others.