Gen-Z: Navigating The Death And Rebirth Of Chivalry

My exasperation at how many men my age still mistreat women has reached boiling point.

I date, and I'm having a good, safe and wholesome time doing it, but I still see how most men are incapable of accomplishing the bare minimum. A common refrain by women is that 'the bar is super low'; women are more educated, forward-thinking, open-minded and empathetic than men, and the gap is widening again, and men still move through romance and intimate connections with women in life and the workplace like entitled bags of [expletive].

What I see is a lot of men who want to have their cake and eat it too. They want some perfectly feminine woman with all the trappings of a conservative 'traditional' relationship, with the man in charge, but they also want their girlfriends and wives to be smart, professionally ambitious and willing to split the bill while doing all the housework.

In Dubai, these differences are less obvious; most people are not here permanently, and with so many expats, if they are, they are likely to find those relationships they want in their home country or within that community in the UAE. But across the country and around the world, the evidence about men, women and relationships show men are still failing to catch up, from the basics like empathy and housework to being an ally and protector of women whether romantically involved or not.

In short, the basics of feminism; most men of Gen-Z and younger falsely believe that gender equality came and went, and now men are on the chopping block. This couldn't be farther from the truth, considering who makes the decisions for institutions like governments, banks and media companies, but men still want both.

I know for a fact that most men don't think about the patriarchy the same way I do, and I accept that. A man with no job, no education, no kindness, and no ability to clean up after himself will probably feel much better about his poor prospects if he has a woman he can come home to and mistreat. Someone who is doing the cooking and cleaning for him, because at the very least he isn't at the bottom of the pyramid. It's been the same story for thousands of years; those with power turning those without against each other so they don't look up at the source of their material woes.

Within our current context, it is the failure of both individual men and the vehicle of manhood as a whole to address and metabolise the importance of gender equality. People can make excuses about culture or religion, loneliness epidemics, or point to the myriad failings of capitalism, but people are still being raped, forced into child marriages, or pushed into having children they cannot care for and don't want forced upon them by a global society that remains broadly patriarchal and paternalistic.

I bring all this up again because dating is, to be frank, a hellscape for women and a walk in the park for genuinely good men. You can cry 'gold digger' and 'men's rights' until the cows come home, but as a man I'm not risking my life opening an app or walking down the street in shorts above my knee.

There's respectability and modesty to think about in a country like the UAE and even a place like Dubai within it, but truly, who is at fault if a woman gets attacked by a man? Perhaps all men should be locked up since they can't control their urges.

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