<i>&gt;Then maybe we should defer to the people directly involved.</i><p>Small correction: person involved. You rarely get to hear the others&#x27; opinion or viewpoint on the matter.<p>Which brings us back to &quot;they&#x27;re <i>possibly</i> interpreting a friendly tone as a condescending tone&quot;. Of course they&#x27;ll feel unsafe when they see danger everywhere because they&#x27;ve conditioned themselves to be victims and everyone else a possible aggressor. Or maybe the other person is an asshole and they are 100% verified. Without seeing it happen or having an <i>unbiased viewpoint</i> there is no way to know for sure.<p>Deferring to a possibly biased viewpoint <i>is not the answer</i>. Here&#x27;s why:<p>I keep the door open for absolutely everyone if they&#x27;re within 8-10ft of the door without discrimination of age, sex, gender, religion, sexual orientation, height, weight, body shape, deformities, mental ability, physical ability, which direction they are walking, whether they are wearing socks with sandals or slippers, if they are accompanied by someone else or alone, or any other reason you could possibly think of to discriminate against holding the door open for someone.<p>All it takes is a single woman thinking I&#x27;m being chivalrous (which is now &quot;benevolent sexism&quot;) to hate me for all of eternity because I&#x27;m a sexist misogynist because I happened to hold the door open for her and her cognitive bias and victim mentality instantly believes I only held the door open for her <i>because she&#x27;s a woman!</i><p>Would you accept her <i>biased and negative</i> viewpoint at face value? Rhetorical question: you&#x27;ve already stated your belief that we should defer to the person involved. Which turns her into a victim and me into a sexist. For no reason<p>Now, I could stop holding doors open for everyone, but I know I would eventually get flak for not holding a door open for a woman and she&#x27;ll assume I didn&#x27;t hold the door open for her because of her gender.<p>I&#x27;ll await an article in coming years with the following complaint:<p>&quot;This hackerspace is unfriendly, nobody is willing to help me or share information. People keep to themselves and don&#x27;t socialize at all. Can&#x27;t they see I&#x27;m having troubles soldering these wires together? Its no wonder women don&#x27;t want to be here. Everyone&#x27;s a coldhearted asshole.&quot;