Recall a continuous map is *separated* if its diagonal is closed. This is equivalent to the fibers being relatively Hausdorff in the total space. **Proposition.** Suppose $\mathrm P$ is a class of continuous maps satisfying the following conditions. - Closed under composition. - Stable under pullback. - Contains closed topological embeddings. Then $g\circ f$ lies in $\mathrm P$ and $g$ is separated, then $f$ has $\mathrm P$. *Proof.* Form the obvious pullback diagrams and play around. **Question.** What is the topological intuition behind this proposition? How does the separation property of fibers somehow allow to "cancel" separated maps?