Awww… shucks ma’am.
[fumbles with hat]
I stand when anyone “new” enters the room (or the house), male or female. But I don’t just stand, I stand up so that I can acknowledge and greet the person properly.
But say it’s my grandmother’s birthday, and I’m having dinner with my extended family. My female cousin gets up to make a quick trip to the kitchen – maybe she has a hankering for some A1 and none was put on the table. It would sure seem awfully silly to abruptly stand up, sit back down when she passes the doorway to the kitchen, stand up again when she re-enters the room, and sit back down as she seats herself. It would seem extra silly for all the male members of the family to abruptly stand up, while all the rest of the female members of the family remain seated.
I would hazard a guess that part of it stems from the fact that in former times women were relatively cut off from public life, such that most of the women (exclusive of servants or other lower class people for whom one of course would not stand) a gentleman would ordinarily meet were, in fact, those to whom you would normally wish to show special respect: your mother, the hostess of whose husband you are a guest, and potential mates/potential mates of your sons.
To hide the boner.
It goes back to the development of chivalryin the 12th century and the linked idea of courtly love. Standing in the presence of your superiors, at least until they told you to sit, has always been the rule in the West. This still survives with judges, teachers (in some schools), and in the forces.
As part of the development of chivalry a concious effort was made to elevate the status of women - or at least ladies! This involved giving them a special status and put them on a higher plain (at least in courtly terms) to their menfolk. Hence a knight stood in the presence of a lady.
I think it’s funny that some people responded (basically) “because it’s courteous and polite”. Surely the OP’s reason for asking is why is this action an act of courtesy. That it is an act of courtesy isn’t much in debate.
My WAG… if you’re sitting when someone deserving your sign of deference enters the room, you’re likely to continue engaging in whatever behavior you were doing anyway (eating, talking to neighbor, etc.) Consider — just standing up for a woman while still chatting away wouldn’t really be considered that chivalrous of behavior.
So, it’s really just a way of showing that when a woman enters the room the polite behavior is to cease what you’re doing and attend to her.
Could this be a relic of a time when women were tied into crap gowns so ridiculous that sitting down must have been an adventure, so your services may indeed be needed just to help her sit down? Wouldn’t be surprised.
My intuition is that it originally signalled readiness to accept commands from the lady. “At your service”, and all that.
While I always assumed it involved getting a better view of her decolletage.
A man’s sole purpose in life is to service the Queen Bee, and to that end all women are Queen bees.
So, basically, when a man stands, he is silently announcing “at your service, Ma’am.”
My snarky response is that women get extra courtesy because men want to sleep with them. And as I partly alluded to above, I do think that’s a part of it historically. Even in modern times, formal manners are usually taught to adolescents in terms of making a good impression on a date and his or her family. Women don’t traditionally do the same for men because they were presumed to be in the role of accepting or rejecting romantic and sexual advances rather than initiating them.
I think it has much more to do with that than the (somewhat parallel) idea that women are delicate flowers who need extra care.
Agreed and well stated. Also, in today’s working environment, men are not allowed at all to even notice women as anthing other than a co-worker. If a man was standing up every time a female co-worker entered his presence, he would at least become known as a hard-up perv, or worse may subject his employer to costly legal issues. You cannot even ackowledge if a female co-worker is dressed well, or got a haircut, or anything of the sort.
I believe that this is mostly it. Look back at George Washington’s Rules of Civility and
one will see that many of the rules concern simply paying attention.
*Sleep not when others Speak
Sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.
Turn not your Back to others especially in Speaking
Read no Letters, Books, or Papers in Company but when there is a Necessity for the doing of it you must ask leave
When Another Speaks be attentive your Self and disturb not the Audience if any hesitate in his Words help him not nor Prompt him without desired, Interrupt him not, nor Answer him till his Speech be ended. *
I wonder what George would have thought about cell phones at the dinner table…
Related question: Why do men have to lower the toilet seat when they finish? Maybe the ladies should raise it after they finish. Eh?
Nah. Lower the seat and lid, so everyone has the same starting point.
Yes, if we’re treating this as a GQ question about “why is it standard etiquette to lower the toilet seat after use”, it goes back to the pre-flush-toilet custom of keeping the commode covered when not in use. Pre-flush toilets weren’t always emptied promptly after every single use (a practice that has to some extent come back into vogue again in water-use-conscious communities, usually accompanied by the slogan “if it’s yellow, let it mellow…”).
It has always been considered more sightly to show the closed lid than the interior of the toilet bowl along with whatever it may happen to contain.
Avoiding the above debate about the death of chivalry and the moronic bedfellows of one’s offspring, I have one example when standing makes perfect sense: standing up when the lady next to you is about to leave her seat, and sitting down after her.
Reason is simple, sitting down graciously in a dress or long skirt can be difficult, because it has to be pulled up a tad so it has room to stretch. Thus you stand and help her pull her seat in while she adjusts her dress, and vice versa when she stands up.
After reading about bonobo behavior in this article in Wired, I wonder if it is not more primal in nature (although diminished by the invention of clothing).
p.s. appropriate poster name…but I thought you were limited to ASL? 
I like this one. I’m not so much interested in why people do it nowadays, as to why it was ever started as a sign of respect or whatever in the first place, and I think we’ve had some good answers.
The better to peer down your low-cut dress, my dear.
I bought the self-lowering kind and installed them on all 3 toilets in the house. No matter what is raised, when finished all one has to do is lightly move it and it slowly lowers the seat and lid by itself. The missus is much pleased.
I consider this chivalrous behavior on my part.