another open letter

Dear Male Species,

This goes out to you. Actually, most of my open letters have been addressed to members of the male species, but this one is more general than the Angry Guy on the Bike that I Almost Hit But Didn't Mean To, and the Dear John McCain open letter.

So, this has to do with how you treat your lady friends. Evidently we live in more enlightened times where we females have jobs and drive cars and aren't fainting in our corsets anymore while the maid runs to get some smelling salts to keep us from swooning again at inopportune moments. Thank God.

But, my friends, this doesn't mean that chivalry needs to go by the wayside just because we're more independent and self-sufficient than we used to be. The truth is, as much as we like to hate on you for being insensitive and sometimes clueless, we do like having you around. And we do like it when you treat us well. This goes far beyond "I don't beat you up," by the way. It involves some measure of just being awesome and standing up for us when we need a little extra help.

If you see something that might be making her uncomfortable, it probably is. This isn't just a violation of physical space. When what someone's saying starts sounding like an obscene phone call, that's not ok either. Honestly, we would love it if you would intervene.

And we hate when you just stand there all passive and let us take it, because you're allowing it to happen, you're contributing to the objectification and degradation of women. Because it shows that when it comes down to it, you don't really respect us either, and we just lost any respect we had for you.

But before I get all man-bashing on here, I want to say this.

Sure, we can hold our own with a lot of things, but there's nothing that makes many of us more angry than to have you standing by instead of standing up for us. It could be as simple as "hey, don't talk to her like that," when someone more or less thinks it's ok to suggest all sorts of things he wants to do with her, or pulling her out of the mosh pit when it gets too crazy, or if you're out at the club putting your arm around her to ward off the advances of that drunk guy who's trying to grind on her.

Trust me on this, they will love you forever.