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

[Greythorne]

Thinking of the awful, shocking Costa Concordia cruise disaster, what do you think about the convention of women and chikdren being evacuated first?

Purely practically it ensures the continuation of the species doesn't it. But it is a socially imposed construct - maybe to give the men something to do instead of fighting for scarce resources when survival instincts kick in?

I think a lot of parents would be quite happy to stay behind if their children were safe - I know I would be happy too. DD is old enough to look after herself so I think dh would stay with me. Also I'm past child bearing age so not as useful to the species as younger women.

It's bobbins - especially since ships now come with lifeboats which have sufficient space for all crew and passengers - shuffling about to let people who are by arbitrary convention deemed more worthy go first just delays getting everyone into the boats. First come first serve is the best way to go about any evacuation situation.

I thought there weren't enough lifeboats on the Costa? If there were enough then the crew should just ensure everyone got in. It sounds like it was really badly handled though.

It takes more time to sort out women and children than just to seat everyone. I can understand taking the extra time for children, but IMO all adults should be treated the same.

Btw, I don't know if this is true, but a friend was saying last night that the majority of the crew who stayed to help were women, and if that's true I'm not sure 'women and children first' was even really happening.

Given the situation there (close to shore, not enough lifeboats because one side couldn't be used) then I think it should have been a priority to get those who needed the lifeboats most into them - small children, disabled people etc - those who would have been less able to either swim, or go into the water and be picked up by other boats.

I don't think a fit active woman should be prioritised over a man in a wheelchair. Or over a similarly fit and active man. We are no longer hampered by corsets and big heavy skirts, so our chances of managing for ourselves are not any worse than those of a man.

In the past most womens clothing would have made swimming very difficult, hence the greater need for lifeboat spaces.

I think the main issue here is definitely the continuation of the species. Children are our future (well, Whitney says so, so it must be true), and women are their life support for 9 months pre-birth.

I'm guessing, then, that the practice of women and children first would be down to trying to impose some kind of plan or order to prevent a free for all, as a free for all would result in those who are physically stronger (in almost all cases men) overwhelming those who are not as strong physically (in almost all cases women, and certainly all cases children). Once that happens, you have a whole bunch of men saved, none of whom have the ability to sustain the next generation in their bodies.

Ideally vulnerable people should go first - children, frail, disabled, elderly. As women were predominantly the carers for children perhaps this is also why they went first (as well as the clothing point)? Young children should be evacuated with an adult carer - this could be man or woman. I'm a much better swimmer than DP so I'd fancy my chances swimming over his, but then I am also a BF Mum so I'd probably stay with the baby and 4yo.

But as someone pointed out above, its probably better for all if people are evacuated as they turn up.

Especially in this instance when they were close to shore. Surely the lifeboat could drop people off on land & come back for more?

Well, in this instance they couldn't launch the lifeboats (as the boat was listing so much), they were close to shore so i guess they thought the men had more chance of swimming to shore?

The lifeboats could come back for more people, but they'd have to jump into the water and be pulled into the boat - they normally put the people in the lifeboat quite high up on the boat, then lower a full lifeboat down the side. I don't think they'd be able to bring a lifeboat back up to refill it?

Children plus a carer each, elderly and disabled first makes sense.

I would definately go with the kids over DH as I'm a terrible swimmer, but if it was the other way around it would be silly for me to go in the lifeboat.

y, they can't bring the boats back up to refill, so anyone who wouldn't be able to jump in the water needs to go first.

are there lifejackets available for people who choose to jump into sea & swim over waiting for rescue? There can't have been enough lifeboats if 50% were out of action anyway due to list.

I was on a cruise last year, and honestly some of the pushing and shoving and blatant disregard for others when it came to meal times or disembarking was truly sickening.

There is never a shortage of food on these boats but the way some folk were going on you'd think they hadn't been fed in a fortnight.

Going by this, I can only imagine the scenes trying to get onto lifeboats, especially when it became clear that there wasn't enough. I think the woman and children first would try and keep some sort of order, otherwise you would have 3000+ people all pushing and trampling on folk to get onto the boats.

I have no idea how or if it was enforced, I think there was a lot to be said for the crew of the Titanic carrying pistols.

I know I wouldn't want to be separated from my husband in a situation such as that, we only have 1 ds, but if you had 3 or 4 and were trying to get on a life raft, in the freezing cold and dark it would be a pretty scary situation

Children and enough carers first makes sense from a continuation of the species point of view, not sure this is relevant in most disasters nowadays though. I think it is more about our cultural view of children and what they represent to us personally nowadays. Adding elderly and disabled to the priority queue seems more civilized but may jeopardize more lives ultimately (as may children first), depending on how time sensitive evacuation is.

A totally first come, first served "rule" could promote a more ruthless and selfish approach to evacuation that ultimately means fewer people actually saved. Also possibly a skewing towards whichever demographic has the skills for the situation (strong and fast usually, but possibly most resilient against certains shocks, or those with highest pain threshold, etc.), nearly always those in the 20-45 age group though.

I wonder if those who thought up the convention of women and children first gave any thought to what it feels like to deliberately split families up - the distress and extra fear it engenders in an already terrifying situation.

I can see the reason for helping those least able - children, disabled, frail etc. but cannot see any reason for women to be favoured over men, especially as women, with more body fat, are better placed than men to survive in cold water.

The often giving reason of letting women survive to ensure continuation of the species (as it only needs a small number of men to impregnate large numbers of surviving women) is highly dubious even in the 19th century when there was population enough and a few hundred men or women losing their lives was neither here nor there (and certainly would not be so today with billions on the planet). I rather suspect it was more down to the dubious practice of chivalry.

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

Agree with AMIS also.

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.

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.

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?