to wonder if titanic sank in 2012 would it be women and children first

[McHappyPants2012]

or would sex discrimination and equal rights mean first came first served.

mayorquimby swimming for it can be a very bad idea. Distances at sea are difficult to judge and you wouldn't know local currents and tides. Far better to find a bit of flotsam or jetsam and cling on and wait to be rescued. Far enough from the ship that you wouldn't get sucked down...

good thinking. The recent one was reported to be very close to the shore so that's what made me think of swimming for it in that situation. Think I might just nab a lifeboat to myself to be safe.

You are a Mayor, after all! I just wanted to use the phrase flotsam or jetsam TBH.

Hell no, you'd be crushed underfoot for the lifeboats. No one is for saving anyone over themselves now. It's not so much equality but a lack of manners and altruism.

Actually while 66% of third class children died 67% of first class males, 92% of second and 84% of third. Even one of the five first class children died. Can you tell what my dts did their P6 project on?

It would be carnage. Absolute carnage.

Depends on the waters. If it's all iceberg-y, as opposed to warm Med, you've got max 30 minutes before you succumb to hypothermia.

It's fight over the boats or nobly go down with the ship, really.

Dh argues that he should go with dc & I should remain on the Titanic because 'you're so bloody useless at balancing you'd have the whole boat capsizing whilst you dithered your arse on board.'

No, I'm afraid for me it would be me first, as a father. dd would not be left fatherless a result of giving my possible place of safety to someone else.

You have to consider that communication and rescue would be infinitely better now. The Carpathia would have been there much quicker and the Coast Guard have greater range and capacity. I still wouldn't want to be in the water.

But the Carpathia was so far away. Any ship would have sunk as quickly as the Titanic did given it's structure. The innocence about being 'unsinkable' didn't allow for one big massive iceberg, or the missing of sonar technology.

Just wondering was this thread inspired by that New Titanic show and did I miss it?
It was filmed in my college earlier this year and was wondering if it was going to be any use given the annoyance it caused me.

No, I think we gave up any moral rights to women and children first some time ago, but I do think it is the most rational for kids.

The real lesson is don't take kids with you in peasant class.

I can understand that men should have equal rights with women, but why shouldn't children be put first? I'd give up my place for a child.

Children shouldn't be first for practical reasons. 30 unaccompanied children in an open lifeboat? It would be horrible and very dangerous. I think that might actually be the practical reason for women and children first. Kids, great, and the carer who probably spends the most time with them and will therefore be able to keep them calm and safe.

I think families will always put themselves first, men and women included. It's probably better that this is accounted for, less scrabbling. I can't see, in this time, that anybody would put somebody else - child or adult - above their own familial interests.

I don't think children are more valuable than adults - from an actuarial point of view they certainly aren't. Human life is human life.

It is a myth that it wasn't women and children first. Yes 1st class passengers were more likely to survive. But actually of passenger who survived 72% were women, 50% children and only 18% Men. Overall 37% of passengers survived. I think today more men would survive than women.

I think it would be a free for all but it should be children and an adult carer first. Doesn't matter if that carer is mum, dad or adult brother or sister.

All that does is lead to time-wasting; the process would be quicker if all were treated equally and shoved off into their lifeboats based on fill capacity.

I'd like to think that people would work together to save the children first, but tbh, I think that there would be people pushing and punching and trampling over people's faces to get to a lifeboat.

But I do think that some people would try to save the children first. And perhaps even some who would try to get the women on board the lifeboats too.

These days, I think better than "women and children first" is "children and a parent first".

Women and children first was never a rule. It's a bit of a myth. However, when we cruised with the children, there was a muster drill before the ship sailed and by the time we got the children into their life jackets we were almost the last to arrive at the muster point. The children were put to the front and my hubby and I were directed to the back of the queue. Of course at this point, I said sorry, where my children go, I go and the lady who was just behind my children in the queue said absolutely and scooted back to make room for me to stand behind the kids. My hubby was still at the back of the queue. So it's not even parent and child first. It just expected I think that the children get off first and everybody else follows. The children had to wear a wrist band with their muster point on it so if they were in kids club or just seperated from their parents, staff are trained to take them to their muster point where they'll find their parents. On a slightly seperate note, I've sailed with three cruise companies and not one of them ever set sail without having the muster drill so I was pretty shocked when I heard that the Concordia hadn't had a drill before leaving port. I know the rules say within 24 hours but it seems a little irresponsible not to do it immediately. I would guess the rules are about to change.

DP works at sea and he says that on ships these days everyone has a lifeboat assigned to them.

He was always taught at college that in the case of a cruise ship that all passengers were to be got off the ship before the crew left.

Must just be me then, Children, Women and the elderly.

Bugger that, the elderly have had their lives, I still have so much to give .......

Waht do we mean by elderly? Plenty of those in late 50's these days still have fairly youngish children.

I was picturing an 80 year old ..... I met a man yesterday who is expecting his 2nd in a few weeks, he was 50 so no not him.

I think we've become very insular and selfish; our priorities are 'us and ours' and everybody else comes a very distant second. The trouble is, because most people seem to think in that entitled way, there's nobody left to 'put them first'.

Hopefully, following the awful Concordia diaster, rules and regulations will become much more stringently followed.

Wistfully... if I could go back and save people from the Titanic now, it would be the brave musicians - and the captain. Jack and Rose could stay where they were...