Chivalry Doesn’t Seem So Dead

I’ve had some recent experiences with what would probably best be described as “chivalry.” It reminds me of a bunch of very instructive class discussions that I had when I was teaching Intro to Women’s Studies at Hunter College about gender roles within heterosexual romantic love. My students–by and large–still liked the idea of differentiated expectations, including monetarily, for women and men within a dating context.
Here’s what Dictionary.com has to tell me about this loaded word, chivalry:

1. the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms.
2. the rules and customs of medieval knighthood.
3. the medieval system or institution of knighthood.
4. a group of knights.
5. gallant warriors or gentlemen: fair ladies and noble chivalry.
6. Archaic. a chivalrous act; gallant deed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where chivalry and care taking coincide. I think relationships–of any variety–should be based on a mutual commitment to care taking for one another (in addition to a slew of other qualities). I rub your back, you rub mine…in all it’s forms (dishes, love letters, oral sex, oh my.)
So can there be equality within chivalry? Can we reclaim old behaviors, like the somewhat ridiculous convention of opening a car door for someone, if we do it in our own way, within feminist relationships? Or does it all still stink of an earlier time when women were property and men were pursuers? (Think the gross “Take Back the Date” bullshit that the Independent Women’s Forum is always pushing.)
As with all things thorny and romance-related, it seems like this ultimately has everything to do with your own relationship to the chivalry being bestowed on you. If having my car door opened makes me feel like lover man thinks I’m an invalid, not so feminist. If, instead, it strikes me as his way of expressing that he wants me to feel seen, appreciated, taken care of, it might actually feel like a fairly feminist act.
I’m experiencing chivalry in a heterosexual context. Breaking down the historic intertwining of chivalry and masculinity could be fun for me, and fun for folks in queer relationships. What does it look like for a woman to be chivalrous? Or have we been disproportionately chivalrous for hundreds of years while care taking within relationships with major domestic labor imbalance? (I can totally hear my childhood best friend right now exasperated and shouting, “Courtney, can you just enjoy some frickin’ flowers for once?” hehe).
Your thoughts people?
*Confession: I’m also reading A Vindication of Love by Cristina Nehring, which has got me spinning on all of this stuff. A book review to come…