If I May...

I know it may seem old-fashioned, perhaps even chauvinistic to some, but this is something passed down from my grandfather that has been lost. I see it being done incorrectly everyday, and when I do, I judge the men doing it incorrectly as uncouth and ignorant dis-respecters of women. If we were in the 1800s, I might publicly but politely reprimand him. If that failed, a slap of his face with my glove. Finally, a duel in the public square if the knave persisted in his reprobate ways. This being the 2010s, I will create an infographic instead. (Click for the big.)

The practice was in place to prevent women from being splashed by horse-drawn carriages, I think, as they trotted through the city streets, which in those days were made of mud, urine, dead people and horseshit. Later, when the streets became paved, the man still bore the brunt of whatever might be splashed by careening taxis. Even later, it kept the women from being visually and verbally molested by the seething hordes of delinquents, gawking, ogling and shouting obscenities from the rolled-down windows of their low-riders, hot-rods and other barbaric conveyances. Today, it allows the man to take the bullets in a drive-by.

Men, you don't need to make a big deal of it. Just casually maneuver yourself to the street-side when walking with a woman. If she must know why you have done this, you now have a story to tell her.