But, speaking for this woman at least, that is not what women want or need. To be put on a pedestal also risks being kept in a box. In the good old days that Kelly mourns, women were not so much elevated by gender as constrained by it. Imagine how Kelly’s remarks sound to the female service member struggling to prove herself in the male-dominated military culture.

If the upside of chivalry is the opened door, the cape spread upon the muddy ground, the downside is the presumption, perhaps subconscious, that feminine is the equivalent of weak; the impulse to treat women in the workplace differently from their male counterparts; and the consequent distortion — sometimes overt, more often subtle — of career choices and opportunities.

Forget sacred. I’ll take equal.