Women and children first - Page 2

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

I'll take time to debate here since DM has been a bit low on activity.

I think women and children first comes from the conventional notions of weaker sex. Children are the weakest and need help. Women are the weaker sex. Men are expected to be brave, chivalrous and self sacrificing. It would be shameful for a man to survive while he let women and/or children drown. Hence the system of women and children first.

Its really hard to decide on the saving order.

Favoring either gender would be sexist.
Favoring the rich to "buy safety" is unethical towards the poor
Nature's way would be we fight it out blood and guts and only the strongest survive. Fewer people survive here and people balk at the thought of violence. Also we tend to value the creative people, the intellectuals who may not be strong in a physical sense.
Trying to develop a  logical priority list would be very arbitrary and time consuming.

However, we can view woman and children first through a pragmatic viewpoint as well. Suppose humans are in peril, who should we save? Obviously only men or only women makes no sense.

Children would make most sense as they can grow up and mate to carry the human race.

However, children often cannot survive on their own and need help. Women are suited to caring for children, so preference may lean towards women. However, one could argue that men could protect and can nurture as well. But if we look at human sustainability the mating potential of men would be very limited. Women in this case are a more sensible choice, especially women in child bearing years.

Hence women and children should be saved in times of crisis. The problem with this theory is that Titanic or similar situations are not human sustainability crisis. But since any other priority list is flawed, we assume that women and children ought to be saved.

I'm curious if anyone has a better way to prioritize? I'm sure there are other social/emotional aspects to view it as well, but those theories will also tread the grey line of men vs. women. I'm sure my theory has plenty of holes as well.

Originally posted by: .Doe.

Not a feminist either!

But if men & women are considered to be equal, why are some special privileges such as these given to women? Beats me. 

Originally posted by: souro

I guess most of you have seen the movie Titanic. Was watching it on TV today and the orders given when the lifeboats are launched made me think: Why women and children first?

I searched on the internet and found out from Wikipedia that it originated from the incident of one HMS Birkenhead sinking in 1852 (check link 1 & link 2 out for more details if you want). And although there doesn't seem to be any formal law which makes following this order mandatory, it seems this is what even the society in general has come to expect. Infact, society goes one step ahead and adds elderly in the list too and young adult men come last. Even while reporting the number of death in an accident or natural disaster, the media always report 'this many people died including x no. of women and y no. of children.'

So, back to square one and the question still remains, why women and children first? Why not a different order? Or even, why any order at all?

Frankly speaking one doesn't get to see these so called privilege or moral right of "women-child first " being practiced -at least not in India. Most of the time there is only panic and no established order and its each one for oneself. The various stampede cases in crowded places/ religious processions/ panic due to rumours are some instances. In these cases there is no order - we dont see anyone giving a thought to any woman, child, handicapped or elderly. Instead what we have is total bedlam and panic.

In case of hostage taking say during a hijack we usually see the abductors release the women and children and also the infirm instead of the men. This makes practical sense from the POV of the abductors. It would be much more troublesome to have a female/toddler/sick person/elderly person on their hands as a hostage.

In the case of Titanic the women and children were to be saved first as per the captains order while the captain himself preferred to go down  with his ship.

One of the male protagonist tried to break that order on the sly,  by picking up a crying child and posing as her guardian/parent in order to escape. Once in the boat the child was left to herself. So its not that the captains order was being followed by all those present on that ship. In fact  one of the crew member had to fire at the crowd of men that was getting unruly as they learnt about the impending danger and wanted to rush and grab the boats that were being lowered with the women and children in it. Moreover, we did see women as well as children of the working class locked up behind doors! They had been left behind along with their men , without any opportunity to save themselves! So its not just about women and children. Its a lot more complex. There is class distinction, some feigned morality,  as well as some practicality involved .

 The only reason the women or children were being allowed to get away first was because the captain desired it and many of his crew was used to or willing to follow his orders. We must not forget that while the boats were being lowered, very few people on board knew that the ship had insufficient boats to save all of them! And some were oblivious to the imminent danger. When we take note of the female/ kid first out policy in Titanic, we should not lose sight of these circumstances that were clearly depicted in the movie!

So coming to the question of why have an order (that is , if at all there is or was any )-

As rightly pointed out earlier in a post above, first come first basis or no order could result in chaos. Making a conscious decision to select atleast some, brings down the panic level that could otherwise occur and thus provides a chance for some plan of action to salvage the situation however slim that might be. In such a case it would be better to get the infirm out of the way and retain men and women that are capable of handling the situation well. But if its a hopeless case such as that  of evacuation then most would act as per their innate nature. Eg the Titanic situation- Those who are used to placing others before themselves (eg the captain, some crew members, Kate, Leo) would continue to do so and so  would those who place themselves first on priority (eg the sly protagonist, many other passengers, workers on the ship) In a moment of crisis people would act as per their instincts. Morality, order, law wouldnt matter much in a desperate situation.  There would be many , if they could have it their way , who would prefer an order of "ME and only ME" first why s/he ! Action would depend  on an individual's nature shaped by his/her belief system during life. The captain and the chief engineer both must have known this and  hence their decision to withhold the information regarding shortage of boats to the people (both men AND women) on board.

So what order and what preferential treatment are we talking about ?