Syrian Father survived, Mother and children drown.

And YY - some proportion of the men will be selfish arseholes and some of them will have grown up with ingrained sexism. There have already been two grab-and-drag rapes reported on the road near our local refugee centre which were committed by refugees. Not all refugees are nice altruistic people, for sure. But that doesn't mean that we demonise all of them. I think drowning is one of those things where your personality likely doesn't really contribute, survival instinct and human nature is in control, that is all. And chance. A lot of random chance. The odds are probably stacked more in favour of men.

Most of the time they are floating on totally inadequate things like children's rubber rings designed for swimming, or bits of plastic from the damaged boat.

When a boat capsizes, over 90% of the occupants drown. They tend to lock the lower decks too because if it does sink, which is likely, it helps it to go down slower when there aren't as many people panicking near the edges. Horrific.

I read that if they have life jackets available they are standard issue "fisherman sized" ones, so often women and children are wearing completely inadequate protection.

I think even if dad is holding the child up above water, rather than mum the poor DC is still more likely to die from the cold than a full-grown man or a woman who can swim :(

No one is discussing whether the father abandoned his children to save his own life.

The discussion is on clothing and trying to swim, especially with regard to women. Children have no hope really.

And anyway the Mediterranean is not a calm pond with clear blue skies, and a gentle breeze. It gets incredibly choppy and dangerous. I'm just aghast anyone makes it through.

Why have you posted this in Feminism?

Because it is a feminist topic? Women are dying in larger numbers than men, which should not be the case due to anatomical differences, as I pointed out.

Let's not forget, that, as in Europe, some percentage of Syrian men are likely to be selfish assholes. It is nothing one wants to think about, but it does happen. Men don't magically change once they become fathers.

Though the theory that they interview more fathers to construct a threatening scenario is also interesting.

Anyway, I am of the opinion that we ought to send some helicopters there and provide safe passage for the women and children, at the very least.

Why have you posted this in Feminism?

I think I read that in one of the earlier cases like this the women and children had been down below for shelter and the men had been on deck - so when the boat started to sink they were easily able to abandon it and start to swim while the women and children were trapped. :(

I can't believe anyone is actually suggesting a father would just abandon his drowning children. Clothing may have something to do with it where women are concerned but the fact is women rarely have the opportunity to learn to swim. My DH is originally from a country close to Syria and I honestly don't know many women that have learnt to swim, not that many men for that matter either but still a much higher percentage than women.

How fucking insulting and distasteful at a time of immense grief and unbearable loss to suggest that a living husband/father would save himself and not care enough about his family to make attempts to save them?

There are many times when some people make it through a tragedy and others with them don't. The ones who do, live with it for the rest of their life alternating between guilt, regret and sadness. Have a fucking heart.

I think a lot of it is the clothing.

I was watching something on TV about why so many medieval women drowned in ponds. The presenter dressed up in long gown etc and went and sat in a pond that wasn't even very deep. It looked like she very nearly drowned during filming at one point! Long skirts soak up water, become very heavy, cling around your legs and trip and disable you, she couldn't find her feet for ages and barely managed to eventually crawl her way out. She looked genuinely terrified and panicky as she was being dragged down at one point. Out of your depth - no hope.

There are stories where women or children survive. In fact anecdotally, a lot of men are taking higher risks in trying to save children, even children they don't know rather than just thinking of themselves which rather sheds light on the human condition as a whole. In all honesty, I don't think that most people could ignore a drowning child if they had a chance to save them even if the chance was slim. It takes a shocking lack of empathy to do that.

Honestly I think it's a horrendous situation and while women might be wearing more clothing to begin with, even heavily religious beliefs don't tend to come between life and death. If your loved one is drowning and they could survive by removing clothes, you'd encourage them to remove clothes. But it probably isn't easy to remove clothing when you're already in the water.

Remember more men than women and children are attempting the crossings, which might skew survival figures.

This story talks of one particular crossing and mentions several non survivors in the order that they don't survive. It's sad and contains a couple of harrowing details, but I didn't find it nightmare inducing. Might be worth avoiding if you are feeling very sensitive.

www.ted.com/talks/melissa_fleming_a_boat_carrying_500_refugees_sunk_at_sea_the_story_of_two_survivors

This is good for perspective too and is based on real stories.

www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601

Hmm. I'm tempted to point at that study that shows the most likely people to survive an air crash are able-bodied men - because they fight their way over the others to get to the escape chute etc. But I don't want to imply that I'm blaming the surviving refugee men - that wouldn't be fair. I do reckon, though, that it's probably fairly universal that in a life-or-death situation, most people fight for themselves and the strongest win that fight.

Possibly, just speculating and feeling a bit about how bombing will bring peace. We can't know how many women could have been interviewed, whether they wanted to or not, whether they were passed over. I'm also not sure of the Syrian education system in relation to women and how many would have a chance to learn English as a second language which may be a factor with interviews.

TheCarpenter is it not more likely that men are willing to be interviewed and women aren't? Or men are taking on the sort of "community leader" type roles?

@thecarpenter I think you're probably spot on. We haven't got a clue whats really going on around the world

You only have to hand wash a thick wool sweater and then lift it out of the bowl to see how heavy it is. Now imagine that plus skirt and other clothing as well. Amazing any woman survives.

If I was going to be a massive cynic, and I feel like one today. I'd say the media will keep interviewing the men, as it fits in with some views regarding who is fleeing. As my MIL said 'All fit young men coming here to steal our jobs and rape our women'.

I'm sure the Fathers love their poor children as much as the Mothers do. But I bet we would have more calls for safe transport if the media was filled with bereaved Mothers instead.

There really aren't sufficient words to describe how awful this is. But I just wanted to say that I really don't think that Syrian fathers are just swimming away from capsized dinghies saving themselves and leaving their wives and children to drown, which is what has come across from a few posters, hopefully unintentionally.

I imagine it's do to with the clothes - did you ever do the pyjama swimming lesson for water safety?

School made me do it (turned out it was possible to make the usual miserable experience of weekly swimming lessons with shouty games mistress even more miserable - although oddly I'm not a bad swimmer and now enjoy the odd sea or posh hotel swim)

We had to do it for a school swimming lesson in Y8 - only thin pyjamas but it was incredibly difficult. I made the mistake of wearing a non button up top and pulling it over my head was really, truly scary. If sodden cotton trousers can be so disabling, I can only imagine how dangerous normal clothes are.

We had to be able to get out of pyjamas in under a minute to pass as apparently after that time your ability to tread water and float significantly decreases because you get tired of fighting the dead weight.

I must have done it before 10/11 in my (outside of school) swimming lessons, as when they did it in school (i think it was the last year of primary?) i had already done it?
Anyway...

I wonder, if the dad kept the child, whether that then makes the child more likely to survive, or the dad more likely to drown?

But yes, safe transportation is obviously the best solution. Not obvious to the powers that be though :(