Excuse my bluntness, but either women are equal or they aren't. If they are, then there is no reason to offer an otherwise comparable person (say, alone, mid-20s, reasonably healthy, and capable of safely standing on a moving train) just because they happen to have different hormones and sexual organs than myself. I can come of with dozens of reasons why I'd give up my seat to someone, including the simple one that I happen to be a lot more capable than most of balancing and anticipating unusual motion on a train, and thus are safer standing than someone who is on their first trip.
To a mother with children, I'd offer a seat. To an older woman clearly in greater need than me of a seat, I'd offer a seat.
To my own girlfriend? Likely I'd sit. Why? Because we are otherwise comparable, except I happen to have a bad back, bad ankles, and a bum leg.
Chivalry died when various women went marching in demonstration asking for it, and numerous other discriminatory practices, to be removed in favor of equality. Oh, yes, discriminatory.
Discrimination, dis-crim-i-na-tion |disˌkriməˈnā sh ən|, Noun, first definition: Varying treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex
Discrimination does not imply negativity. It is discrimination to treat one group of people better OR worse than another.
I don't object to equality under any circumstances. What I object to is a definition that seems to imply that women should be equal via the loss of inequitable practices they consider negative, whilst retaining inequitable practices they consider positive.
I don't mean to offend, although, as always, I don't make any particular effort to avoid it.
Oh, by the way, to quote Abraham Lincoln, "This reminds me of a story." Some time a few years back, when I was attending college, I was in one of my better moods, and upon entering the school Library, a female student was approaching the front entrance from within carrying what appeared to me to be both a heavy school bag and several heavy reference books. Having been in the, uh, fun situation of attempting to open the heavy doors while carrying similarly cumbersome and heavy loads, I held open the door and stood aside for the girl to pass.
It was easy for me to do, it seemed to me the girl, or more accurately, person, needed the help. So I did it. And forever to this day consider it one of the funniest things to ever happen to me. Because she promptly started screaming at me for being a male chauvinist pig who thinks that a woman can't open the door for herself ("Lady," I thought, "I am a lot larger and stronger than you, and I have trouble doing it!"). In response to this clear request to retract my offer of help, I let go of the door as she, for reasons unclear to me, continued to proceed to go through it. I had figured she'd wait for it to close and then make a statement by opening the blasted thing herself and marching through it.
At which point, a gust of wind blew the heavy door into her face, causing her to stumble backwards and fall on her posterior. Several people, male and female, standing around and watching because they had been startled by her literal screaching, started laughing their heads off. Her face turned red and she started blowing off even more steam.
I, feeling bad about what happened (I, contrary to common belief, do not enjoy hurting people- at least unintentionally), attempted to offer her a hand getting up and collecting her stuff. Whereupon, she promptly started screaming "SEXUAL HARASSMENT!"
Finally, her roommate or friend or partner, or whatever their relationship was, came over, told her, in less kind language, to be quiet in a fashion somehow related to sexual actions, that she was making a huge fool of herself, that she managed to fit under two outdated categories of mental impairment, and that she apparently needed to receive a status of living. She got up, her friend gave her help with her things, and while carefully studying the pavement outside the entire time, walked away.
Honestly, with people like that, how can you expect us to be chivalrous even if we want to?