Where Does ‘Women and Children First’ Originate?
Why the great difference between the two ships? After all, they were both British, and carried a roughly equivalent passenger load. It seems that not only was there comparatively little time to spare aboard Lusitania, but the ship was listing badly almost from the start of the crisis. This combination of factors made it nearly impossible to launch most of its lifeboats or to follow the Birkenhead drill in doing so — although, unlike Titanic, the ship was equipped with enough lifeboats to have accommodated all of its passengers.
Of the few boats that did get rapidly launched from the mortally wounded Lusitania as it was going down, several overturned and spilled their load of humanity into the sea. Brute strength, the ability to swim, and resistance to the coldness of the water seem to have been mostly what separated the quick from the dead, rather than any attempt at chivalry.
What does any of this tell us about Concordia, a disaster in which even more people were potentially at risk (about 4200) than on the other ships, but only a very small number lost their lives? Does “women and children first” still hold as a maritime disaster precept?
The answer to the latter question appears to be “not exactly.” Although nothing stops people from behaving that way if they so choose, there’s no official directive for passengers to do anything other than assemble where they’re told to in an orderly fashion and follow instructions, which are not gender-specific. Richard Pellew, chief surveyor for the southeast region at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, had this to say about it:
Women and children first is a Victorian hangover. … It would normally be passengers first and crew last — you need them in emergency procedures to get the passengers off. Most cruise ships have a system where you move passengers to a muster station then move them into the life-saving appliances and take them off sequentially. The last people tend to be the specialists who are looking after the emergency systems.
We don’t know all the facts yet, but reports are that on Concordia the order to launch the lifeboats was delayed until the ship had already started to list significantly, which then hampered the process. Some of the confusion may also have come from the fact that the accident occurred so early in the cruise that there had been no safety drill yet. The survival of nearly all the passengers may be a tribute to the relatively long amount of time the crew had in which to launch the boats, as well as the fact that the ship never completely sank.
So has the “woman and children first” rule finally become “nonsense,” as in Churchill’s quip? In our current world of feminism and equal rights, it’s become harder and harder to continue to justify the Birkenhead drill, except for the need to protect future generations and those who bear them.
But that’s no small thing. As science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote in his novel Time Enough For Love:
All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function.
That is still true in a larger sense, although it needn’t apply to the passengers on every ship that meets with disaster. But the society that ignores it completely is a society that may ultimately depopulate itself.
Kipling’s work always gives me goosebumps.
I guess I don’t really care whether the “woman and children first” rule is considered outmoded or not. I believe I would follow, because that is what I consider the right thing to do. Hats off to the crewmembers who stood their ground to help the passengers off.
Bravo, sir! Analysis clear-eyed, unsentimental, and sound. I try to write like this; occasionally I even succeed.
What if you are a 17 year old male?
You give your place to women and children.
What if you are transgendered?
If you wanna’ be like Hoppy, you gotta’ ride like Hoppy.
i would not give up my life boat spot for rosie o’donnel or beshar!
Chivalry is and has never been about women (and children), it is about the perfection of the man.
Good point.
Still, the perfection implies an exterior focus.
The Musashi Miyamoto Trilogy. Musashi is finally ready to fight (whether he realizes it or not) when he gives himself to Otsu, to be her husband.
This was true as well for Shaun Thorton in “The Quite Man”.
Uh, hmmmm. Do the words “greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends” ring a bell?
This article may just be proving Steyn’s point over at NR. Western culture was once Christian in outlook and affect. From a Christian point of view, it makes sense to say “women and children first,” because they are the weakest and most vulnerable. If the alternative is a mad gender-neutral rush to the lifeboats–well, you see our point.
Self-sacrifice for the sake of love is a natural concept for those who are steeped in the ethos of the cross. The gallantry shown on the Titanic does not have to be explained; everyone used to know what it meant.
Apparently this is no longer the case. Everyone does not know, including the author of the above article. Pooh-pooh the critique of feminism all you want; something is gained and something lost when men are liberated from the perceived need to be noble and generous.
And by the way, Churchill was joking.
Darcy: of course Churchill was joking. That’s the meaning of the word “quip” in the fourth paragraph from the end.
“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” is about laying down one’s life for one’s country.
So no, it doesn’t ring a bell at all.
It’s from the Gospel According to John, Chapter 15. Jesus is speaking to the Apostles at the Last Supper about His Passion. He will lay down His Life for all His friends, including those who are still His enemies, in order to redeem them. He further commanded the Apostles to recall all the things He had done and told them to do likewise. In that Spirit, Paul, though he was not at the Last Supper, wrote to the Corinthians, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for Her.” That means a Christian husband must be prepared to lay down his life for his wife if the need should arise.
WWI poet Owen kicks “Dulce et Decorum Est” in the pants.
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html
As much as the landlubbers love this idea of women and children first, it hardly works today. Ships are required to carry 100% survival craft capacity on each side (just for the listing risk), passengers and crew are assigned to their station, each station launches at the direction of the OIC once abandon ship has been ordered. You follow your assignment and things stay in some order. True the Concordia had not had their boat drill for the passengers so their was confusion but so had he listing jumbled the drilled order. Obviously, some, if not most, of the crew did their duty and got the mass of people off the ship as best they could even though the captain and other senior officers had abandoned their posts.
The idea also fails in the face of feminism. If women are equal then they take an equals chances. Some seem to think like the Concordia’s captain, that they should enjoy the privileges but not be held to the responsibilities in times of trouble. Then, of course, we could run through the variables, what to do about women in the crew, what if the captain was a woman, do we force off a female passenger who has taken charge in the vacuum before the job is done?
Still the standard prioritization would be to see the children off, pregnant woman off, the injured and infirm. Also, women looking after the children. Now if we were in a survival of the species or nation situation, then young child-bearing women would go before men to keep the breeding stock up.
And, no, regardless of the foolish ideas of infantilizing boomers, a 17 yr old male or female is not a child. In 1856, it could very well have been that boys as young as 13 stood their post as the ship went down or only made the boats as coxswain or bowhook with the duty to take charge and see his charges to safety.
Hey!
Don’t forget that essential need for (se-)men off too!…..so as to:
….”Now if we were in a survival of the species or nation situation, then young child-bearing women would go before men to keep the breeding stock up.”
O.K., maybe we’ll have cryogenic specialists among the lucky women to decant (aliquot) the frozen semen as required on that spaceship to that new warm planet which may take a hundred years to reach?
Rudyard! and H.G.!, call your offices!
This isn’t 1856. The vast majority of 17 year olds in western countries ARE children. They are immature, irresponsible, inconsiderate, empty-headed twits.
But then, kick it up a decade and the story is the same.
So; What’s the drill on the Islamic Cruise ships? Or the American GLBT Cruise Lines? I need to know in case I get stuck on one while escaping the torpedoed United States. And are the instructions written in english?
Am I being offensive and/or racist for even bringing this up?
I once was, for an hour or two, at sea on a Korean fishing trawler that was full of obvious homosexuals (holding hands, sitting in each others’ lap, etc.). They treated us politely, but after I left the ship, the weather got worse and three of my shipmates had to bunk overnight there. One of the three later told me nothing happened, but he slept with his .45 pistol just in case.
Later I was in Key West on a port call when the cruise ship “Bermuda Queen” entered port (I didn’t make this up), with 1,500 gay men aboard, who shortly spilled into town. That was well before homosexuality was valued above heterosexuality in the U.S. culture at large, as it is becoming now. But in Key West, the gay men were lined up around the blocks to get into the gay clubs, and they whistled at my shipmates, made catcalls, etc. Fortunately, I was never on this ship.
I don’t know what would have done if either ship had sunk. People surprise you in such situations. You will likely surprise yourself, perhaps with virtue or cravenness. But when encountering a life-and-death emergency, I would rather be in the company of those who practice virtue, self control and self-discipline as a lifestyle in non-emergency situations, rather than a lifestyle of seeking pleasure and worshipping hedonism at all costs.
It is said that in an emergency, a person reverts to training. People who train themselves to be virtuous may not always be virtuous, and those who train themselves to be craven may not always be craven, but that’s the way to bet.
Well, Dean, my first experience of Key West was in the mid ’60s. Homosexuality was obvious then. The place has always been decadent. Great place for food, drink, fishing, sailing, and partying, but I’m sure glad I never had to live or be stationed there. (Public urination is one of the highest incidents for arrest since the public restrooms are few and difficult to access outside of major public events).
(I was being facetious in my first comment, “trolling”, as some would say, to elicit bizarre feedback.
I’ve also had training in rescue procedures.
Basically, you can’t help anyone else unless you are capable of saving yourself. That process needs to be evaluated, practiced, and judgement made on a case by case basis. And in the chaos that a sinking cruise ship experiences, any sexual, religious, or ethnic preference, is one of the lowest priorities in whether one gets rescued or not. Judgements made with that criteria could be considered criminal and be prosecuted.
I like to joke around, but, being a victim of a sinking and capsizing cruise ship wouldn’t make me chuckle, but command the most professional, selfless, response I could muster.
Cybergeezer, I wasn’t talking about who should & shouldn’t be saved. I was talking about who would be doing and wouldn’t be doing the saving, despite the risk to life and limb.
My point is that people who live for self (the gays in Key West, for example), cannot be counted on in general to act selflessly to save others in an emergency.
If I were doing the saving, of course I would save all in my power because they are human.
Dean; I hope to meet you on my next cruise. The first drink is on me.
Women, children, and the infirm first. No excuses and no drivel about feminism blah blah. Women, children, and the infirm first. Passengers then the crew.
Since hanging is no longer an option, those crew, captain especially, who abandoned ship before the evacuation was complete should face stiff prison sentences. Were I managing the evacuation, any man who tried to board a lifeboat before the women and children were clear would be shot.
What happened aboard the Concordia makes me sick. Call me old fashioned.
Because I wasnt there, I’ll buy the Captains story that he fell into the lifeboat by accident….
I’ll even buy the story that it was safer and more effective to “supervise” the egress FROM a lifeboat….Leaders often need free sight and movement in order to assess, decide, delegate, etc…on the ship he may have become just another person trying to climb out once it heavily listed….maybe…
But he should NEVER have left the scene, EVER…why some lifeboats (command and control boats?) dont have small electric trawling motors so they can (attempt, conditions permitting) to travel about the scene and supervise, I dont know.
At the very least, communicating with the “coast guard” as a leader/supervisor on the scene was a minimum requirement….dont WAIT to get yelled at, tell THEM what youre doing, what your plan is, what your resources are, what you need most from them.
In other words, take charge…Captain
“But he should NEVER have left the scene, EVER…why some lifeboats (command and control boats?) dont have small electric trawling motors so they can (attempt, conditions permitting) to travel about the scene and supervise, I dont know.”
They’re not the rowboats of “Titanic.” A Safety of Life At Sea (SOLAS)ship, which this appears to be, would have powered, fully enclosed boats for lighterage or use as lifeboats that would have enough capacity on each side of the vessel to evacuate the entire complement of passengers and crew. Many of them have evacuation slides like aircraft so that passengers can safely evacuate even with a heavy list and they usually have some fast boats that can be quickly launched and used to recover passengers who had to go in the water from slides or by jumping. What there doesn’t seem to have been was an immediate awareness of just how badly the ship was damaged and when she began to list so heavily they had close to panic among the PAX and crew.
Thank you Art…
I’ve not been on a vessel at sea since the USS Tarawa in 1987!
(and I have no recollection whatsoever what/where/if/how its lifeboats and abandon ship routine operated)
To my mind it’s not so much that the standard of ‘women and children’ first in the lifeboats seems to have been ignored here – it’s that the senior leadership cadre of the Costa Concordia apparently had no problem with abandoning 4,000 or so paying customers. They were supposedly responsible for them all; men, women, children, fit, unfit, whatever. It’s the lack of professionalism that’s dismaying to me. Morehere – http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/27456.html
Women and children first is a Victorian hangover.
I think you mean “holdover.”
“But it turns out the Italians are hardly alone in jettisoning the old rule, which was never quite as universal as we may think it was.”
Quite right. I think muslims have something running along the same lines:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2011/04/05/01003-20110405ARTFIG00744–vintimille-un-sangatte-entre-france-et-italie.php
«Nous étions entassés à 150 dans un bateau prévu pour 60, explique le garçon. “We were crammed in a boat with 150 planned for 60, says the boy. Au cours du trajet pour Lampedusa, douze filles ont été jetées à la mer. Puis j’ai été transféré en Sicile, je me suis échappé et j’ai pris le train. During the trip to Lampedusa, twelve girls were thrown into the sea. Then I was transferred to Sicily, I escaped and took the train.
Perhaps not.
Placing the Costa Concordia sinking in the group is obscene! The captain of the Costa Concordia is incompetent AND most importantly a COWARD! The crew and the staff were poorly trained and seemingly unsupervised. By crew I mean professional sailors, who know how and practice damage/flooding control! By staff I mean, waiters, entertainers, and such who need to be trained in crowd/panic control. As a certainty I know that flooding control was delayed or not taken at all. This is evidences by water coming down steps into a level space and staff members standing there watching it come in. Also, there was plenty of time to evacuate the passangers and staff. In each of the other cases the Captain and Crew stood to their duty!! Make no mistake, the executives of the cruse line are at fault here! They chose the captain!!!
I recall a similar incident recently off the coast of Africa where an Italian captain deserted his post leaving his passangers, staff and crew to the sea. Do Italian captains have a courage problem?
“Do Italian captains have a courage problem?”
Robert, if you have to ask…….
It seems to me that the Concordia captain’s behavior is equally a comment on Italians and how they are raised as a society as it is on their awareness of maritime etiquette. Doesn’t this dude who claims to have tripped and fallen into a life boat and then refused to go back on board to work to save his ship encapsulate in a nutshell the whole save-the-Euro scenario we’re seeing played out with states like Italy, Greece and Ireland tripping and falling into default, and then expecting some miraculous Big Brother to come to their rescue at the last moment? (And for right now, the American cavalry will *not* be riding to the rescue economically until we deal with That Person in the White House. Although if there had been American ships in the vicinity and not busy rescuing sinking Iranians, we would most certainly have been there and saving what was left of this Italian’s day.)
In most of the European Union, it’s very much a me-first environment, with a determination to *not* give up public benefits, manana attitudes, and afternoon siestas, just as this curly-haired captain was determined not to give up his benefits of lying, cheating and cutting to the front of the line. I haven’t seen it any where, but I’d love to know his resume and how he got this job — just exactly who is he related to, any way?
What hasn’t been reported on with all the carrying on about the Captain was who actually had the conn. It is widely reported that the Captain was at dinner, which we can presume means he was off watch and one of the Mates had the conn. Generally, the First Mate(s) at least would have the same licensure as the Master or Captain. Master or Mate is what you’re licensed as, Captain is a company rank and most of the Mates would probably have a Master’s license as well. (I’ve signed articles as a Mate using my Master’s license so I could get sea time to maintain my license, and there are more mate than Master’s slots, so you do it just to get work as well.) When s/he is off-watch, they have no immediate responsibility for the ship, the on-watch mate is in charge. Generally, if the Captain is off watch when somethig happens, s/he will come to the bridge and either assist or relieve the watchstander, but he doesn’t have to.
If these ships are like the ones that ply the Alaska trade, the deck and engineering officers are pretty well trained; merchant mariner licensing is pretty standardized internationally. The unlicensed crew members might well be another matter. In the Alaska trade, most of the unlicensed crew are Asians, mostly from Malasia or Indonesia, but with a smattering of Filipinos, that are basically rented from labor brokers and are about as close to chattel as humans get outside the Muslim world. American unlicensed crew members are required to have a good bit of training and a background check to get a Merchant Mariner’s Credential and a Transportation Worker Identity Credential (TWIC Card), but I don’t know what the requirements are for unlicensed crew on foreign flag vessels.
The day signal for a ship run aground is hanging three black balls in a column over the side. They are colloquially known as “The Captain’s ball, the XO’s ball, and the Navigator’s ball,” because all three of them are getting fired for letting the ship run aground.
You so rarely see day signals in use that I always kept a cheat sheet at the helm because I never could remember them all. If you actually had to have immediate recall of everything you have to know to get a Master’s license, your head would explode.
But I agree with that; you rarely survive putting a ship aground even with no loss of life. Interestingly though, I thought the grounding of Alaska’s M/V LeConte was an egregious act of negligence and bad judgement by both the Master and the First Mate who was on watch, but the USCG only suspended their licenses for a few months over it. The State wasn’t so generous; we fired them and made it stick through both grievance arbitration and a court appeal. We did lose on trying to not have their license insurance maintain their wages while their licenses were suspended, so that will tell you about all you need to know about the US unionized maritime industry.
The company employees would be divided into those in the service of the vessel and those not in the vessel’s service. Those in service to the vessel, the ordinary seamen, able-bodied seamen, pursers, licensed engine officers and crew, and the licensed deck officers are trained and obligated to manage damage control and if necessary evacuate the vessel. The entertainers, stewards, cooks, blackjack dealers, etc. might have a little more training in evacuation routes and processes but they’re basically just like the passengers in an emergency and have no real responsibility. And all this stuff about the officers going down with the ship is just legend; you are not obligated to do anything in the service of the vessel, or to aid another vessel, that places your own life in danger.
Workers for hire.
Reminds me of the merchant ship’s crew who refused to offload their cargo at Midway Island days before the Japanese invasion attempt, because it was their off-time. The only thing that got them going was the garrison commander’s statement that the ship sure would make a nice fat target in a few days’ time. Self interest prevailed.
I still believe that nobility has not entirely vanished from among the merchant seaman of the United States, although it would be hard to tell it from this account.
There’s lots of stories like that; some members of the Merchant Marine didn’t exactly cover themselves with glory in WWII, though they took casualties second only to the USAAF in Europe.
I was really trying to point out the distinction between the duties of the professional mariners in service to the vessel and the entertainment or other such employees who have no maritime background and little responsibility in an emergency situation. And as a mariner you are legally obligated to do anything you can to render aid that doesn’t put your own life in danger.
There have been some ugly stories about crew behavior in various maritime accidents in recent years; the Prinsendam sinking in the Gulf of Alaska in the ’70s, early ’80s generated some bad stories and some steps to increase crew training and responsibility, but I really don’t know how effective it has been or how much of it applies to operations in the rest of the World.
I did the administrative investigation on the grounding of our M/V LeConte a few years back and while the deck officers screwed up, which led to the grounding, the crew acquitted themselves very well in the subsequent evacuation and the same is true of the BC Ferry that grounded off Northern BC a few years back.
I think the Merchant Marine was badly stung by some of the things that happened in WWII, and the academies and the unions have emphasized greater responsibility to the vessel, its passengers and cargo, and to general good behavior by crew on US Flagged vessels. I have little knowledge of what it’s like on foreign flagged vessels other than casual contact with crew members when I lived in Juneau. As I said in another post, other than entertainers and such, most of the unlicensed crewmembers on the foreign flag cruise ships in the Alaska trade are only one step, and barely that, above chattel.
Thanks, Art, for the follow-up comments.
Professional mariners act, in general, professionally, except for some recent cases of southern Europeans (Greeks and Italians I am thinking of) who thought only of themselves. In one recent case, the Greek captain and crew left the sinking ship in the south Atlantic, if I remember right, and the cruise activities director saved everyone.
It is the professional mariners who are subject not only to the laws but also to the traditions and lore of the sea, which call forth more than just the indifference of any old bored landsman watching the clock.
My experience with large vessels is at the company and enterprise level, and usually only because something had gone wrong. But, I do hold a 100 Ton Master’s License, so I’m not unaware of the laws and traditions of the Sea. Hell, I can even tie a few knots.
Italians are femminists!
Survival of the fittest.
I would at least follow a “mothers with children first.” What decent adult would clamber over a terrified child to save herself or himself, and how do you send a child off alone, without its mother?
Oh, I don’t know. How’s about liberating Rosie’s kids from her in such a situation?
Survival is about keeping your wits about you in the chaos. Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor results. Have a plan, work the plan. Have a back up plan because the plan will not survive contact with chaos.
I remember that joke: “Women and children first! And when they are through the minefield we will follow!”
Maybe not the maritime way but still…
I always thought is was women and children first so the men have something soft to land on.
So … biology is destiny after all.
Sacrifice to duty is neither exclusively British nor military. From the indispensable http://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/ -
Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell
John Hay
Well, no, I can’t tell you where he lives,
Because he don’t live, you see.
Leastways, he’s got out of the habit
Of living like you and me.
Oh, where have you been these last three years,
That you have not heard tell
How Jimmie Bludso cashed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?
He weren’t no saint; them engineers
Are pretty much all alike:
One wife in Natchez under the Hill,
Another one here in Pike.
A careless man in his talk was Jim,
An awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked and he never lied,
I reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had:
To treat his engine well,
“Don’t ever be passed on the river
And mind the pilot’s bell.”
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire,
A hundred times he swore,
He’d hold her nozzle against the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats have their day on the Mississipp
And her day come at last.
The Movastar was the better boat,
But the Belle, she wouldn’t be passed.
And so she came tearing along that night,
The oldest craft on the line,
With a negro squattin on her safety valve
And her furnace crammed rosin and pine.
And the fire broke out as she cleared the bar
And burned a hole in the night.
Quick as a flash, she turned and made
For the willow bank on the right.
There was runnin and cussin, but Jim yelled out
Above the awful roar,
“I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot’s ashore.”
Through the hot, black breath of the burning boat
Jim Bludso’s voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
For they knowed he’d keep his word.
And, sure as you’re born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,
And Bludso’s ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
He weren’t no saint, but at Judgment
I’d run my chance with Jim
‘Longside of some pious gentlemen
Who wouldn’t shake hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead sure thing,
And he went for it, there and then,
And Christ ain’t gonna be too hard
On a man who died for men.
Also, apply the homosexual marriage argument to the one here about perpetuating the species. Homosexuals argue that marriage isn’t about children because some couples (normal couples, I mean) cannot have or do not intend to have children.
By the same reasoning, since not all women can, do, or will have children, then no women should receive deference in respect of the perpetuation of the species argument.
The original argument is rubbish, of course. The fact that not all of a group meet a certain criterion does not imply that the criterion should be applied to none of the group. The meretriciousness of the argument is apparent.
You’re right – it is a dumb argument accompanied with fanciful tales of homosexual tigers and praying mantises.
Comparing oneself to broken people and the few does not make that exception magically transformed into the rule except by morons so steeped in daily depravity that it does in fact seem natural and normal to them.
Guess what, Ru Paul ain’t normal. Deal with it.
And people wonder why Muslims want Sharia. Guess what, in Islamic countries I don’t have to pick up a take out order after a 10 hr day at the warehouse at midnight and walk past 2 6 ft. 5 inch transvestite hookers like I had to one night in downtown Minneapolis. Freedom isn’t the same as debauchery nor should debauchery be as natural an attachment as a remora.
Given the reality of feminism and their view that women are fully equal and capable, I’d have to say that if it were me or the women of “The View” I’d not only take their place but motor away laughing like a vengeful hyena. I cannot see helping Whoopi Goldberg or Ru Paul with anything that might enhance their own survival or compromise mine.
The rule of thumb by the old standard would be that anyone who really needed to call 911 would be the first protected. Given that 911 nowadays is used to back up big mouths, it would be my new standard as who to ignore as I motored away laughing like a vengeful hyena.
I would try to find room in my boat for Elisabeth Hasselback. Just in case we had to spend some time on a deserted island. I’d throw the others overboard to make room for her. But that’s just me. I’m just chivalrous i guess.
Hey Feminism, be careful what you wish for and next time apply it more evenly be insisting on being 50% of the broken and wounded in Vet’s Hospitals rather than 2%. Don’t take no for an answer; I’ll back you up.
Body recovered inside the ship today is female. That should put a smile on your grinch face.
Only if it was the trampled body of Xena, Warrior Princess. In the real world, no one is smiling over death and the issues raised here do have real world applications. Would that dead woman be dead in 1910?
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All children saved, of course. As for the females, the preference should be for women WITH children, rather than women AND children.
Let’s get real here folks. Those chivalrous dudes who still think women are the same from back when it was appropriate to be this way have never had their throats slit in the work place by the fairer sex. They are just as tough as men these days and use all the tools they have to their advantage. AS WELL THEY SHOULD! It’s a dog eat dog world, so go ahead and play the fool and give your life for someone you don’t know so your family and children can suffer the excruciating pain of life without you! CHILDREN FIRST NO MATTER WHAT!! The women part is currently an area of grey that depends on the situation. Again, children first no matter what.
I would save whoever I could, be they male or female, but I would save a child first.
In an emergency like a sinking ship what matters is to save as many lives as possible. That requires cold-hearted logic not medieval romantic BS like “chivalry”. It is really a form of triage.
If the ship is sinking slowly there is time to decide the order in which people board the lifeboats. Pregnant women should go first because that saves two or more lives with a single seat. Children should be next because they are less likely to survive in the water than adults and also have the most future life to lose. Healthy adults should board next on a “first come, first served” basis. Women should not have any priority over men because equal rights in society means equal responsibilities as well. Genuine equality means being treated the same in all situations, which means taking an equal share of the difficulty and danger (and to “Saile Furman”, that does mean that women should be expected to take an equal share of the dangers of war). The sick and the elderly should have to wait until last because their lack of mobility will slow down the evacuation and therefore increase the number of people who don’t get into a lifeboat in time. They are also the most likely to die from exposure if the boats are in the water for a long time before they are found.
If the ship is sinking quickly there is no time to sort the passengers into any kind of order. The only way to maximise the number of survivors is to shovel as many people as possible into the lifeboats regardless of who they are. Individual passengers might still decide to let others board the boats ahead of them. But there is no time to apply any general policy.
In either situation there is no room for sentiment.
Interesting. I’d always assumed 1) it was older and 2) it stemmed from the biological fact that few men can impregnate any number of women. And the kids-well, what kind of a-hole doesn’t put a kid ahead on himself?
“Genuine equality means being treated the same in all situations,”
One ship might not matter, but as a general rule for society, this will not work. Women bear the kids, women have to outnumber men. I know I would never date or associate with a man who saved his own life at the expense of women or children, and I know I’m not alone. Talk about a coward.
That’s fine, so long as you are prepared to give up many of the feminist innovations and accept the social status women held under chivalric culture. If not, then piss off. I won’t make my wife a widow to preserve the life of a woman who wants to be equal when it suits her, but then become a dainty little flower dependent on the chivalry of men when she needs it.
that A few men, and put kids ahead OF himself, sorry.
momof4, exactly. Hence the basic premise underlying feminism is rubbish. The sexes are not equivalent, nor interchangeable. Putatively rational arguments attempting to demonstrate the opposite are pure sophistry.
To put it bluntly, males who don’t protect women and children are not men, and having no use, should be excised from the gene pool immediately upon detection.
APPLAUSE!
Great article, neo!
People have been going to sea for thousands of years, but in earlier times they were almost all men. In the pre-steam era, ships usually sank in storms or when they hit rocks, and they tended to sink pretty quickly.
Women (and children) didn’t travel on ships in large numbers until the wave of immigration to the New World in the late 19th century. The newer steamships were larger and safer than their wooden predecessors, and were less susceptible to damage from storms.
Collisions between ships mostly happened in or near crowded harbors, but were rare on the open ocean. They were becoming more commonplace, though, as the major shipping routes became more crowded with traffic. The Titanic was massive enough to be nearly impervious to storms, and was designed to withstand a collision with a ship of comparable size. That was the worst-case scenario that was imagined. There was only one other ship that large in the world: its own sister Olympic. Thus, it was rightly regarded as “practically unsinkable”. It was built to be safer than any ship had been up to that time.
While the Titanic is the most famous shipwreck in history, the peculiar circumstances of its sinking make it an outlier. At the time, there was no requirement that a ship carry lifeboats for everyone on board, because they were of little use when a ship was breaking up and sinking rapidly after being driven onto the rocks during a vicious storm.
“There was only one other ship that large in the world: its own sister Olympic.”
Almost right. The Titanic had two sister ships of the White Star Line–the Olympic and the Britannic. The sinking of the Titanic occurred early enough in the construction timeline of the other two ships, still on the ways in the shipyards, that their designs were altered. Watertight bulkheads were raised in height, and the number of lifeboats was increased.
The Olympic struck a mine in the Mediterranean during WWI when it was being used as a hospital ship, and sank. The changes made it possible for almost everyone to be save. Only 30 were lost.
The Britannic had more than one collision, but served until the end of its useful life, when it was sent to the scrapyards in 1935.
Oops–the Olympic survived and the Britannic sunk in the Med.
“it stemmed from the biological fact that few men can impregnate any number of women”
This is shear tribalism, momof4. Do you live in a primitive tribe?? How is your theory supposed to hold up in a traditional, monogamous society where marriage is preferred? I guess you’d let your husband go around impregnating other women for the sake of the tribe!
“I know I would never date or associate with a man who saved his own life at the expense of women or children, and I know I’m not alone. Talk about a coward.”
First off, women and children should never lumped together (except for pregnancy and perhaps mothers). Secondly, the devastation of not being able to date you would take a tremendous amount of time to recover from but it might be worth taking that chance to return to my wife and children.
“momof4, exactly. Hence the basic premise underlying feminism is rubbish. The sexes are not equivalent, nor interchangeable. Putatively rational arguments attempting to demonstrate the opposite are pure sophistry.”
So apparently you also believe in this marriage with benefits idea being passed along by momof4? I guess tribalism is traditional for you.
“To put it bluntly, males who don’t protect women and children are not men”
Ok who gets saved if it’s between the child or a grown ass adult woman?
“having no use, should be excised from the gene pool immediately upon detection.”
Please do the human race a favor and voluntarily sacrifice your life the next chance you get because your fantasies of being in that 1 man to 10 women societies are never going to happen and it sounds rather defective. If you join the Military to serve, protect and die, if necessary, for your country than I would say you are reasonable.
“Survival cancels out programming.”
Tribalism suits me just fine.
I also choose to ignore your shocking racism in your pejorative use of the term “tribalism.” You should be ashamed of yourself. We all know what you meant.
tribalism in not race related you moron. you are a projectionist and a slanderer. please stop using a seat belt and whatever else that would increase the chances of you living.
That’s it, try to weasel off the hook. Everyone knows exactly what you meant by referring to “tribes.” Racist.
Why, jharp, it is you. How are you, you trickster you? Still up to your old shenanigans eh? The nasty sentence followed up by the insulting accusation, a winning formula for persuading your inferiors in the righteousness of your cause.
Every human came from a tribe at one point or another. I’m as Celtic as I can be, with English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. All of those peoples were once tribes. Why do you seem to think that only dark humans came from tribes?
Good one, Blackgriffin.
Must.Paint.My.Naked.Body.Blue.
“Tribalism suits me just fine.”
sounds to me like you would be one of the dead males, not one of the
smart ones getting to impregnate many different women.
“Occam’s BS” figures his chances of getting laid greatly increase if the smarter guys are killed off and the big strong dumb or idealistic ones are sacrificing themselves. I know his type.
Keep trying to change the subject, racist.
You’ve lost the argument already, you idiot. The first one who uses the term “racist” loses, which is an update of Godwin’s law about the first one to use the word “nazi”. Just go slink back under your stupid (in all senses of the word) rock.
You and overandout are being played. Did you have your snark detector surgically excised? Did you miss that Gingrich was just criticized for the “racist” undertone to his assertion that Obama was the “food stamp President”?
Get with it, people!
So now the members of tribes are big, strong, and dumb? Don’t you have a Klan rally to attend?
actually the kkk and nazism are forms of tribalism. you are just too much of
a race baiter to figure that out.
so now occam’s pea brain is associating big, strong and dumb with a race. why would anyone even think in such a way? except of course if they were the real rascist because we all know “white” people can’t be “big, strong and dumb”. isn’t that right? you can definately be the leader of the “dumb tribe” though.
Accusations of pea-brainedness tend to ring hollow when they come from someone who apparently doesn’t know how to use the shift key.
apparently your strong point IS being ABLE to press the shift key.
Have you seen the Mark Steyn article at NRO?
The Sinking of the West
If I understand the time stamps correctly, Neo beat him by an hour. I’m assuming that NRO uses EST and PJM uses PST. So I don’t think there was any plagiarism involved, but the similarities between the two articles are stunning.
rickl: this article was published on Saturday, but I submitted it last Thursday evening.
I see a lot of male rage at women in these comments. I guess if you have to work out your mommy issues by trampling over other females simply because you can, that’s between you and your ineffective therapist. Meanwhile, pardon the hell out of us for expecting to be treated like human beings and expecting men to act like them.
Well, lots of us have opened a door for a woman only to have her face turn into a mask of rage as she says, “I can open my own f**king door,” so it’s a lot to ask us to bravely die for the wymyn.
I’ve been told that using the term “ma’am” is insulting to some women. Since it is a conspicuous attempt to do the exact opposite, one can only wonder at the rise of people who seem to take being offended as some kind of hobby.
Actuallay in several sinkings of British ships preceeding the Titanic’s the rule had been “First class” first. What is amazing is that at this time the people of the lower classes accepted this rule and didn’t protest either during the sinking or after being landed. Same thing for public opinion. This rule “first class first” was also enforced bt the crew of the Titanic but here there was an important difference: the first news of the disaster and the landing of the survivors didn’t take place in the UK but in the United States that is a more horizontal sociery where unlike British aristocrats or even wealthy British non-aristocrats (anyway these tend to be granted a title of nobility) the rich aren’t supposed to enjoy special privileges or deserve special defference. The American public was shocked by the vision of women and children waiting to their deaths while men travelling in first class boarded the life boats. Ismay’s shameful flight didn’t do much to soothe the indignation of the american public opinion. But given the precedents it is my opinion that had been the Titanic a purely British sinking ie mostly British travellers and these being disembarked in the UK there would have been no commotion about not enforcing the “women and children first” rule.
JFM: The crew of Titanic “enforced” no such thing. There were other factors that led to a higher percentage of 3rd-class passengers dying, and in fact female 3rd-class passengers were far more likely to survive than male 1st-class passengers. See this.
Isn’t “Women and children first” the direct translation of “Allahu Akbar”?
Upon reading the account of the low female survival rate on the Lusitania, I thought about the fact that the layers of women’s clothing were likely to drag them down once they hit the water. It could be that wardrobe was as much a consideration as “brute strength, the ability to swim, and resistance to the coldness of the water” in the deaths of so many women.
Somewhat coincidentally, I just finished reading Bailey & Ryan’s, “The Sinking of the Lusitania.” They assert that among a tragically large number of other easily preventable conditions, attention to any one of which would probably have prevented the sinking, a significant contribution to the incredibly short time it took that behemoth to sink was the near-certainty that many portholes remained open, in flagrant disregard of what orders to the contrary for sailing through such hostile waters as the Irish Channel then was; and they go into great detail about the staggering amount of water that can pour through just one of these in very short order.
I found myself wondering if cruise ships still have portholes, and if they do, can these still be opened casually by just about anybody. Of course, ship design has evolved exponentially since those days, with no small thanks to lessons learned from tragedies like those discussed in this piece, a propos of which one line from the book seems especially poignant: “There is an old saying in naval circles that precautionary regulations are written in blood.”
Oops! Make that, “… in flagrant disregard of what orders to the contrary specified for sailing through such hostile waters as the Irish Channel then was ….” Sorry.
Any evidence Churchill actually uttered this joke?
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