Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen (an essay on the wonders of cultural difference)
A fortnight (or so) ago we had Luke over for a meal and after the usual superficial chit chat about the ingredients of the non-alcoholic cider we were drinking (fläder/elderflower if you're interested), and how cold it is in Sweden, we began an interesting dialogue (or more a quadologue) on the feminist reading of mine and Luke's "manners". Luke is Southafrican and has grown up holding doors for women, standing when they enter a room, giving up his seat on a bus etc. All things that I've also been used to.

In Sweden, or so Ellen would have us believe, women see this as utterly patronising. It is a cultural statement that means the same as "I don't believe you should be allowed to vote, or earn as much as I do." Before I go on, I have to say that I strongly and agressively disagree with the idea that women should be paid less or be denied voting rights. At the same time I don't wholeheartedly buy into equality - i.e. everyone is the same and that besides the obvious physical differences there is no difference between the way that a man and a woman looks at the world (of course people are more complex than just the gender distinction).

Anyway, a few days later I was at a party in Rosengård, and revisited this conversation in an even more multicultural setting. I explained my reason for being more comfortable walking on the road-side of the pavement (because, in the event of there being puddles in the road, you would protect the person you are walking with from getting splashed). This time Heber, who is from Venezuela, chimes in "it's the same in my country, except that if the woman walks on the road-side then it means that she is for sale!"

In truth chivalry is a dying art, even in the UK ("the home of the gentleman"). I learned its value because I listened to old people (in their 80s upwards) when I was younger, and because of a fascination I once had with musicals from the 1950s. I think that there is a huge amount of value in caring for members of the opposite sex, in treating them well (as 'ladies'). It is wonderfully romantic and side-steps our cultural obsession with objectification.

I do not believe the being a feminist means you have to give up on romance.