When I grew up in the 1950s mostly this consisted of "protecting" all girls and women from physical attack or verbal abuse of any kind and being willing to die in the defense of all women or girls from about age 4 on.
This was a hard and fast rule where I grew up and anyone who broke this rule was sure to get bloodied by me or my compatriots. This was just they way we were taught and it was a great source of pride and focus for all of us at that time. It also meant opening doors for both women or girls and putting on a polite verbal performance whenever you were around women or girls and not swearing around them or saying things that might make them faint.
This started to change in the 1960s and 1970s so often now I will look at a woman to see if she will be offended if I hold a door open for her now. However, mostly now I hold the door open for anyone male or female just out of courtesy as I walk through a well used public doorway of any kind.
So, in some ways things are very different from the chivalry and Noblesse Oblige of the 1950s and in some ways it is also still the same here in the U.S.
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