Ashley McGuire

Opinion contributor

Chivalry lives.

In a viral photo from the Associated Press, a woman is pictured cradling her baby as a man carries them both to safety amid the Hurricane Harvey floods. While the image is quaint, it has a thoroughly modern feel. She has a topknot, leggings and Hunter rain boots.

She could be me.

The image has become iconic of the still unfolding disaster, a photographic balm on a nation still wounded deeply from the vitriolic events at Charlottesville and elsewhere. Thousands upon thousands have shared the image on social media, many adding the phrase, “This is America.”

But the picture has also sparked jokes about “toxic masculinity” as some sarcastically remind others of the reality that in a crisis such as this, it is typically strong men pulling terrified victims from danger.

This is no time for jokes or sarcasm. The picture however, is a reminder of the reality that men and women are different, and that those differences can serve society for the better.

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Men are the stronger sex, and crises such as these offer men the opportunity to put their strength in service of others. Moments such as this give even the most ordinary of men the chance to become valorous, to become heroes. In one of the most touching hurricane images I have seen, a man in a soiled shirt and sweats clutches the hood of a sinking car and peers inside for victims to save. He’s no brawny SWAT officer like the man in the AP photo, but he’s every bit as heroic.

But the AP photo also captures the sacrifice that women make. Connie Pham heroically gave up her body in order to bring new life into the world. No doubt she put her own safety at risk to stay behind with a vulnerable child. Escaping a flood of Biblical proportions is quite a bit harder to do with a 13-month-old in tow. In the picture, she grasps her baby with an intensity familiar to any mother.

Indeed, as some have pointed out, the scene captured in the photo is almost reminiscent of the Nativity. Silent masculine strength, maternal beauty and innocence.

It's also reminiscent of another national incident from earlier this year when a male United passenger who became known to the nation as the “second row guy” stood up to a gruff flight attendant hitting a sobbing mother in the face with her stroller.

Again, she could be me.

The video went equally viral, spawning article upon article praising the man’s heroism, simply for trying to protect a woman. A mom.

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The reality is that our culture is hungry for chivalry. But chivalry demands as a starting point an understanding that women are deserving of it. And that requires acknowledging that women are different. It requires a celebration of their differences, particularly those that enable them to bring the next generation of life into the world.

The AP photo is important. In it, the man and woman each do something the other cannot. They are co-equal contributors who in their own way have given of themselves so that someone more vulnerable might live. And all of this points towards what’s at the center of the photo, a child. Men and women are different, and we help each other be our best selves by helping direct our focus towards those who are more vulnerable.

It's just one picture, and yet it's so much more. It's the inarguable reminder when things get real, and get real fast, we men and women are very much not the same. And yet we love it. We love it, because when men and women work together, unthreatened by those differences, it is a beautiful sight to behold.

McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association, and the author of Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female.

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