> And then there are the women (or should it be something else? How do they pluralize 'womyn', anyway?) who get extremely insulted and huffy if a man happens to, say, hold a door open for them. I encountered THAT particular issue during a discussion in my humanities class last semester. One girl went off about how it was condescending, implied weakness, etc. That view of it surprised me - I had always (and still do) looked at such actions as showing courtesy and respect, not insult. To me, a man opening a door for a women doesn't indicate that he thinks she's not strong enough to open it - it indicates politeness. If anything, it's always struck me as being deferential.

According to someone in one of my history classes, the act of a man opening a door for a woman originated from the Vikings, who apparently would hold the door open for the women to go out of first in case an enemy was waiting outside to bash them on the head.

-flying"I always thought of it as politeness"cats