I am going to a funeral today

- for  a kind, courteous and able man. 
He was over 90. People will say he had a "good" life. Yes, perhaps he did. He has left a frail wife  behind him. I think people will say it was a "good" marriage too.
I didn't know him well. I know his wife. I visited her in hospital some months back and of course he was there. They cared for each other.
He was one of the "old" school - a man who opened doors for women. 
I have been thinking of this yet again because I was bailed up in the library yesterday by someone who disagreed strongly with what I consider to be common courtesy. How dare I suggest that it is all right for a man to open a door for a woman - or indeed give any assistance at all?
When I tried to gently point out that some people, myself included, sometimes need some help she was not prepared to concede her point. For her, men are the weaker sex. They are to be reviled. 
I came home and told the Senior Cat what had happened.
The Senior Cat is most definitely "old" school. It worries him that he can no longer open doors for women, that they now need to open doors for him. 
When he began his teaching career women were paid less than men - to do exactly the same work. There are still women being paid less than men - to do exactly the same work. The Senior Cat is appalled that when he was in his first year of teaching "it didn't even occur to me that this was wrong". By the end of that first year though he had observed what was happening and, to his credit, has fought against it ever since. 
When he was newly promoted from classroom teacher to the head of a two teacher school his teaching partner was my mother. She was not a "feminist" in the modern sense of the term. She just knew that she was equal in the teaching profession - and the Senior Cat treated her as an equal.
And the man to whose funeral I am going would, I think, have been the same. A friend told me how he had helped her learn a role she had to perform. 
      "He was patient. He never suggested that I couldn't do the job."
We need more people like that. 
I am worried that a tiny minority of very outspoken women are doing so much harm. Most women I know are happy to have doors opened for them - not just actual doors but all doors. They are happy to have it done not because they are a particular sex but because it is common courtesy to do it. It makes life easier for everyone.
It means my darling but increasingly frail and anxious Senior Cat can still enjoy the occasional outing. 
Please don't stop the common courtesies of life.