I have noticed that in old T.V. Shows (I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Dick Van Dyke Show) when a women arrived or left the table all the men would stand up for some reason. In later shows (I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Mary Tyler Moore) men would just half stand up and sometimes just lift their tushes one or two inches. When did this tradition go out of style? Did it go away like opening car doors for women?
FYI I was born in 1987 and never saw this actually happen in real life.
I can’t recall when it went out of style, but I do recall seeing it once or twice on formal occasions. For the record, I was born in the 1960’s. You’re right, though, the custom seems to have died out though it might still happen once in awhile at very formal events. Can’t put my finger on when that happened, though.
My father, in his mid 70s, does it fairly regularly.
Go dad! More power to him!
Oh, wait. When you says he ‘does it’ you’re talking about standing for a woman. Right? Well, that’s cool too.
I know a guy, 27 or 28, originally from Midland Texas who claimed he was raised to stand up for women. He said the hardest part was that women didn`t have enough sense to acknowledge it anymore, so he couldn’t sit back down.
I always thought that was funny. It wasn’t enough to carry on a outdated weird tradition, he had to blame women for not playing along.
How do you “play along,” Fuzzy Dunlop? If you’re the woman are you supposed to say thank you?
It seemed to happen a bit on the show “Frasier.” At the coffee shop, Niles and Frasier would usually get up if a woman came or left, though I’m not sure if they also did it for men…
From what I can tell watching old movies and television, you’re supposed to nod haughtily in their general direction and perhaps wave your hand towards their seat in a “please be seated” gesture. There’s no verbal acknowledgment, just body language.
I’m reminded of this. (The bits with the Herald.)
I can remember a time when a friend’s boyfriend did this. It was about a decade ago in Texas. It was not so much a man/woman thing as much as an elder/respect gesture. IOW, he would not stand for his female contemporaries (friends, his girlfriend), but he did stand up for older females (such as my mother - she stopped by to visit and he stood and she just gushed over his good manners). So it was definitely not an everyday thing, but was/is still being taught to some Southern boys.
I have in my hands right now a 1937 Pocket Book of Etiquette, with no less than 8 pages of instructions on how to sit.
Both men and women rise when the hostess enters the room.
Both men and women rise when their boss enters the room.
“In English-speaking countries a gentleman always rises from his chair when a woman enters the room.”
At restaurants, a man stands up when someone stops at the table, and half-rises if someone greets him in passing.
At a dinner party, the hostess stands up to signal the end of eating (adjourning to the parlor, I suppose) and all the guests follow.
I’ve done it before. Certainly, when I was a child, my etiquette-adhering elderly female relatives expected all males at the table to rise when they did, and so to this day, it’s a habit. I just do it when a lady gets up from the table.
It caught my ex-wife by surprise when we were dating. If we were out to dinner, she’d say that she had to go to the washroom, and get up. I’d get up too, and she’d say something like, “No, no, just me, you can stay here.” Once she realized that I rose when the lady did, but would plop down again when she left, she said nothing more.
I also opened her car door for her. Always.
I still open car doors for ladies and stand when they get up from the table. Neither is an imposition, and the ladies I’ve dated seem to like it.
Jesus, if we still did this, going anywhere at all would make life look like a giant Whack-a-Mole game!
Relax guys, it’s just me.
No way, I’m dating Spoons now. He’s a real gentleman.
I’ve noticed that people used to stand to shake hands, too, and I think that tradition still continues.
A man does it standing up, a lady does it sitting down, and a dog does it on three legs.
Well, I have seen Viagra in the medicine cabinet.
Hi there! 
It happens more often if the woman is wearing a low cut blouse.
It happens sometimes in the South among men of my generation. (I’mi in my early 40s). It’s growing rare, though. 
It stopped happening because it didn’t signify anything other than “I was taught to make this meaningless gesture of alleged respect.” People began to recognize that respect is truly displayed in how you treat a person and speak to them, not in the purposeless gestures you make based upon their gender or “station.”