"Women and children first" in the 21st century?

The titanic was the most robust ship built of it's time - it was, however, badly navigated. By a man.

wrong again!

www.historyonthenet.com/Titanic/blame.htm

two enquiries into the Titanic sinking recommended:
All ships must carry sufficient lifeboats for the number of passengers on board.
Ship radios should be manned 24 hours a day.
Regular lifeboat drills should be held.
Speed should be reduced in ice, fog or any other areas of possible danger.

no mention of women being at fault....that is just in your mind....

Yes,if I remember my history correctly women built the Titanic during world war one while the men were away at war.And we know what a shoddy job that was.

Men don't appear in the world, fully formed, by magic!
I know it's a terrible blow for you to find out, but they are in fact grown in the horrible wombs of those pesky women, and are then born as babies, they grow into children and then adults.

HTH

Incidentally when times have called for it, when the men have all been away at war, women have had the opportunity to work in heavy industry. And then when the men came back they got sent home again.

Ah, hadn't realised the ability to work sheet metal was encoded on the Y chromosome, that's useful to know.

'Women and Children first' never seemed to make any sense to me.Let's face it if a ship is sinking you're going to need a replacement ship and I can't see women and children building one!

sportfanatic yes I think we are saying the same thing!

It's interesting isn't it.

A woman wouldn't get very far swimming in a full tight corset and skirts and all the rest of it would she. They used to keel over at the best of times due to being all squeezed in like that. let alone when dunked in cold water and exercising vigorously.

I have no idea whether "women and children first" means all women or women with children never thought about it before

I would guess it meant the former? In pre-contraception days possibly women in their childbearing years were so unlikely not to have children that it wasn't worth mentioning, and that combined with an idea that women were fragile and essentially childlike meant that no differential there was required?

Also given the clothes they used to wear, I would imagine that any women who ended up having to swim for it would be terribly hampered by their clothing, and obviously they couldn't disrobe if there were men around.... Just different times I guess.

Although there is some dispute over the numbers on the HMS Birkenhead it is generally thought to have been 638 with only around 20 women and children. So women and children first would not necessarily have contributed to a massive difference in male/female survival even though it sank in about 25 minutes.

Sardine: I am aware of the back story of women and children first . I don't necessarily think we are disagreeing even though we might have phrased it differently.

Sorry - meant that people generally behave well.

Was good discussion about this on Woman's Hour this morning. According to the 'expert' - generally behave well in these type of extreme situations and help the more vulnerable first.

And thats how I think it should be really so children/elderly/disabled/pregnant should have priority.

Fit and capable men and women should be equal but I think there are a still a lot of men around who would insist upon women first - certainly older men.

Actually I read that here:
"We were keen for women and children to go first, and men if they had babies or families."

which is a slightly odd way of phrasing it, maybe I misinterpreted. Does this mean women first regardless of their parenting status, but men only if they had kids?

The article also gives the example of the HMS Birkenhead evacuation, which is supposedly where the expression comes from. But that's a bit different as the men were soldiers and the women and children obviously not - so really that was 'civilians first', which is what you would expect.

Well I think that is better Ephiny - "Families first"
In the 21st century that makes a better cry for priority I think than "Women and children" first. But probably the same basic idea.
Just that the elderly and disabled people need to be thought of and prioritised too.

From what I heard, it was 'families first' on this occasion, including men with young children . Not sure that women were being arbitrarily prioritised over men.

I think it's rather wonderful to see men being gallant in such situations.
Everyone making sure the children all get safely on the boats, and can be with their Mummy's so they're not so scared.
It's amazing to hear the stories of bravery and generosity which sometimes emerge in disaster situations.
Everyone working together to help one another.
It renews your faith in human nature.
< sniff, sniff, pass a hanky someone ! >

I remember when my DH came to look for me when a fight broke out one night in a pub we were in.
When I think of him doing that for me - which resulted in him being caught up in the trouble - it makes me forgive him for all the little things, and makes me realise that fundamentally he does care a lot.

Is it definite now that the captain legged it? Last I heard he was denying that and saying he was last off.

Difference in group behaviour could be partly down to different types of people in different types of jobs?

Louise - electronic keys aren't the issue it Is what happens when the system fails that is the problem. In the event of a system failure doors should default to be open not closed. It is "fail safe". If that didn't happen then the system was incorrectly manufactured/installed.

One thing I think they could do for safety is get rid of electronic cabin keys on ships. The electrical system went down very early on in this incident, and everyone was locked out of their cabins. Can you imagine if you had left a baby or small child in your cabin while you went out into the corridor to find out what had happened and then couldn't get back in to them? The same would be true if there was somebody in a cabin in a wheelchair or had been injured by falling when the ship hit the rocks. It seems utterly stupid to have electronic keys on a ship, but I haven't heard any criticism of that on the news.

Agree with AMIS also.

I suspect the difference in response is down to group behaviour. Crew are expected to follow a chain of command. Once they realised that the captain had done a runner, and that other crew members were doing the same, they followed the group behaviour. The other staff like entertainment and waiters were never part of that chain of command and so didn't follow the lead of the captain and many of the senior crew. Unlike the passengers, the waiters etc were on the ship without loved ones, so could make a more altruistic decision than passengers on board with vulnerable family members. They must also have known that in the absence of the crew, they were the people most familiar with the lay out of the ship and most able to organise getting people off.

But I hope there is some sort of investigation beyond the behaviour of the captain, and that the people who were shoving children and disabled people out of the way are prosecuted.

Perhaps the crew don't see much of the passengers during the trip, and don't really think of them as individual people, but just as a sort of "mobile cargo"? Whereas the entertainment and waiting staff will spend a lot of their time in contact with the passengers, and more instinctively think of them as individual people and be likely to treat them the way they'd hope people would treat their family and friends in other circumstances.

I wonder why the difference in behaviour between the crew and the entertainment and waiting people.

I seem to remember something like this before - where the crew all went off in the lifeboats and didn't bother telling anyone that anything was wrong?

Clearly vulnerable people and their carers should go on first. From the mobile phone camera footage of that ship evacuation and passenger reports, male crew members were clearly pushing and shoving children, the elderly and a pregnant woman out of the way to get on to the lifeboats. The 5 year old girl who died was with her father; her mother was never on the ship. Clearly that girl and her father as the carer should have been put on a life boat. The 70 year old man who couldn't get on a life boat and so jumped and attempted to swim but drowned should also have had priority on a lifeboat.

It is clearly about vulnerability not biological sex, which is how the male and female entertainment staff and waiters responded, helping other people off the ship, unlike the behaviour of the crew. I believe a female dancer stayed behind to get people off, and was one of the very last people to be removed. A 6 foot four male dancer allowed other people to climb up him after an equipment break to get in to the lifeboat, and the last person in the lifeboat pulled him up afterwards. That is the kind of behaviour that makes sure that the maximum number of people survive, rather than shoving vulnerable people out of the way.

sportsfanatic the convention of women and children first was thought up well over a century ago, when society was different and views about people and their roles in society were different.

Personally I think that vulnerable people should go first (children, elderly, disabled people etc) and maybe if poss not split families up.

having said that whoever goes first others will complain - women and children first mean people say women who want equality are hypocrites, families first means people without children will get the hump, and so on.