Recently my beloved husband wrote a post on handling legal issues like a man. While this is out of my normal scope, given that I know little to nothing about legal issues, I simply had to toss my two cents in to the pot when his simple article exploded into a battle of the sexes and the sexless.

Those near and dear to Andrew and me know that my husband runs a little into right field. As for me, let’s just say that I would have a seat in the nose-bleed section off of right field if they would even let me into the stadium! Yes, I am on the record as a “card carrying, ultra conservative” Catholic. However, I come from a melting pot of family values and am quite accustomed to hearing every argument under the rainbow when it comes to political issues, moral issues, or what-have-you.

However, there is one argument, regardless of the various values and wide political views that members of my family have, that has never wavered: gender. This does not mean that gender roles have remained unchanged in my family. It simply means that gender is unchanged. From my ultra conservative view to the most flaming liberal in my family, we all agree that women and men have inherently different parts. Dipping down to the most basic biological level, women are built with the ability to carry and birth children and men are typically built to endure the heavy lifting and the hard labor.

Frankly I do not have a problem with owning up to how I am built. It is when we start discussing gender roles that even I can draw a sharp breath. I was brought up knowing that men and women can do most things quite equally. Nevertheless, I was still brought up in the glorious “Southern” tradition that women and men should treat each other with respect because the sexes are dependant upon each other.

My mother taught me that a gentleman should open doors for ladies, remove their hat in a presence of a lady or inside a building, should pull out a lady’s chair at the table, should stand when a lady leaves or returns to the table, and should always ask before laying a single finger on a lady (even if it is to assist her with getting out of the car). Conversely, ladies should always say “please” and “thank you” to a gentleman for his help and should acknowledge him for his respectfulness.

Some women and men today see these actions as archaic. I honestly see them as respectful and necessary mechanisms to keep society at a certain level of politeness and decorum. So many times I see hate and hurtful behavior of one human to another. I am of the mind that this is because we are trying to convert society to the “gentlePERSON” mantra rather than preserve the gentleman and lady interactions of yesterday.

Preserving politeness does not mean that we will necessitate a degradation into gender stereotypes. In fact, quite the opposite may occur because we have learned so much in the last century about gender and gender roles. I say all this cautiously because I will honestly always be better at cooking and administrative tasks than my husband, and he will always be better at using power tools and fixing computers. However, my husband and I gladly divide and conquer the chores in our home as do the other married couples in my family. We are acutely aware that we can both clean a toilet with equal ability, and that our respective genders have absolutely no effect on how we each hold the brush.

What truly matters is that we know and understand that we are biologically built different. Beyond that we desire a human difference, a respectful differentiation that stems from biology, but is ultimately held in the social court.