over and over again heard such women oppose efforts to better their own position and that of others simply on the ground that "men would not treat us in the same way—there would be no chivalry, they would not be polite to us any longer." Apparently the good souls are under the impression that no man is ever polite to a person, he does not despise; and this sort of argument shows how completely those who use it have learned to substitute the shadow for the reality and dissociate what is commonly called chivalry from respect. To them masculine courtesy is an expression not of reverence for women, but of more or less kindly contempt for them—and they are quite content that it should be so. Personally, this attitude—an attitude of voluntary abasement assumed in order that man may know the pleasure of condescension—is the only thing that ever makes me ashamed of being a woman; since it is the outward and visible expression of an inward servility that has eaten and destroyed a soul.
