What Is a Lady in the 21st Century?

Being a lady has little to do with wealth or social status, and everything to do with respect, integrity, and grace.

A lady knows how to host a dinner or party with grace and good etiquette. FreshSplash/Getty Images

For many people, that question raises up a thicket of snags and thorns, equivalent to Winston Churchill’s description of Russian geopolitical ambitions as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

Certain traditional signs of etiquette readily identify a gentleman, at least as a starting point of definition and discussion. On public transportation, for instance, a gentleman stands to offer his seat to an elderly grandmother or a pregnant mom. He holds the door of a café open for others. Inside the café, he offers his companion the seat with the best view of the room. He stands when greeting a friend or a stranger.

It’s different for women. When they extend these same courtesies, they are more often tagged as nice or polite than as ladylike. In fact, the very word “lady” is far less common in today’s society than “gentleman.” As writer and fashion designer Marisa Pereira noted in “When Is a Woman a ‘Lady’?,” our culture has pushed “lady” aside as having “a pejorative connotation,” especially when “used as an informal, often brusque, form of address to a woman: I’m sorry, lady, but you have the wrong number.”

Meanwhile, we frequently read or hear that chivalry and gentlemanly conduct are dead, though many of us see it exhibited in our everyday lives. But what about the gentlewoman? Has she gone the way of fans and parasols? What, if anything, does it mean to be a lady these days?

A Credible Reply

Though born in Britain and having lived in India and the Middle East, Pereira has spent her adult life as a U.S. citizen. She wrote, “That being said, I will attest that I cringe inwardly when people refer to me as a ‘woman’ as opposed to a ‘lady.’” In her search for a suitable definition of “lady,” she roamed the internet, which she rightly describes as “rife with arguments, pro and con.” Some of the definitions she found were “a well-mannered and considerate woman with high standards of proper behavior,” “a woman of refinement and gentle manners,” and the “female counterpart of gentleman.”

Dissatisfied with these descriptions, Pereira came up with her own: “Being a lady means acting with manners and reserve which takes strength because it goes against the natural instinct of indulging all our base thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Without this, we lose our mystery and everyone has a look at our bare soul.”

Now, though without specifics, we have the beginning of an answer to our question.

To this topic, by the way, Pereira brings a unique set of credentials. When frustrated by her inability to find her 14-year-old daughter appropriate but stylish clothing to wear to church—in other words, to dress as a lady—Pereira founded her own fashion line, Michaela-Noel.

Wearing the right clothing for the occasion communicates dignity and respect. BearFotos/Shutterstock

Some Particulars

In reading other writers and consultants, we find more grounded examples to add to Pereira’s general definition. In “To Be a Lady in the 21st Century,” etiquette coach and educator Candace Smith believes that today’s lady, just like her predecessors, knows how to introduce herself to others and how to conduct a party or a dinner, “when to speak her mind as well as how to speak her mind,” how to dress for an occasion, to “live in integrity,” and to “treat other people as she would like to be treated: respectfully.”

In her books and articles, Judith Martin, better known as Miss Manners, also zeros in on respect, both of oneself and others, as a telltale sign of a lady. A lady knows, for instance, how to react civilly when a conversation becomes heated, how to refuse an invitation without hurting someone’s feelings, and how to respond assertively to condescension, whether on account of her sex or social standing.

When I asked one friend for her thoughts on this topic, she immediately replied that no lady should use “vile language,” then gave as an example a former news anchor turned podcaster who dresses attractively and appears ladylike until she throws F-bombs and other obscenities into her commentary. When my friend speaks with men, she tells me, they somehow sense almost immediately her objections to foul language and quickly abandon it in the course of their conversation.

Now we have a more rounded answer to our original question. Respect, a polite reserve, and a regard for civilized behavior seem the chief qualities of a gentlewoman.

Ladies and Gentlemen

My friend’s anecdote reveals an important and overlooked effect of the ladylike: Namely, ladies help create gentlemen.

Here we arrive at an interesting merger.

If we look beyond those surface marks of a gentleman mentioned above, we find multiple books and articles written for men extolling gentlemanly behavior that matches the core principles that define a lady. Respect for oneself and others top the list in most of these commentaries for men. And like the ladies, true gentlemen should practice integrity in everyday life, maintain a certain reserve when dealing with people other than family and close friends, and, as Pereira, Smith, and others recommend for women, pay attention to their personal appearance and conduct, particularly in public.

There are some exceptions. The gentleman’s playbook, for example, demands that he step up and protect a woman when necessary, whether against a thug on the streets or a bully at a party, and ladies like Pereira appreciate this protection: “I do not consider myself the ‘weaker’ sex even though I couldn’t challenge a flea’s bench press ability!,” she wrote. “Being a lady, doesn’t steal my confidence, capability or compassion. It doesn’t make me a weak, ignorant doormat or a commodity.”

In short, and with a few exceptions, the core qualities of today’s ladies and gentlemen are essentially the same.

Modeling Virtue

And like gentlemen, ladies are made, not born. Smith, Pereira, and a small army of etiquette coaches, along with countless numbers of parents, are living evidence of this assertion. “Clothes make the man,” goes the old adage, but training by word and example makes ladies and gentlemen.

Nor are today’s ladies, as they once were, products of money or social standing. Mothers, physicians, teachers, entrepreneurs, hairstylists, and baristas—women across the spectrum of society qualify as ladies by their behavior, dress, speech, and the respect they show to others, not by their education, power, or the size of their bank accounts.

Moreover, these attributes of character connect directly to virtues like kindness, humility, and wisdom. The woman who considers it beneath her dignity to go to the grocery store in her pajamas is not only making a fashion statement but also displaying respect for other shoppers. The office employee who asserts herself with passion leavened by grace is practicing the classic virtues of courage and temperance.

Good manners include polite speech and active listening. Milky Way/Getty Images

Why It Matters

If ever our society needed ladies—and gentlemen, of course—it is now. Ideology and politics are tearing our country apart, creating canyons of separation. What has made this culture war far worse is a widespread lack of civility and manners. Coarse language and sneering insults, an ugly lack of regard for opponents, the injudicious promotion of feelings over thought, and the frequent insistence on rights without responsibilities are driving these divisions.

If there were more ladies and gentlemen among our citizenry, perhaps we might have a better shot at building bridges across those canyons. If we showed one another more respect, if we kept tighter hold on our emotions, and if we treated one another civilly on social media, we might have a chance for the country to heal.

So where do we find these ladies and gentlemen? We first look in the mirror. Then, if we have children, we look at them. And then we take to heart this thought from Marisa Pereira: “I think we can sum up the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to be definitions of the sex we are as humans whereas ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ are what we can aspire to be.”

Right there’s an answer for a better future and a happier life.