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Women and Children first? Does that still hold up in today's world?
Shanadeus
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I just saw Titanic the other day for the second time in my life and found it to be an enjoyable experience.
But the film itself is not the discussion point here, rather I want to talk about emergency scenario etiquette and how it is today. Now the old wisdom appears to have been "Women and Children first", they fill the lifeboats/escape vehicles and then the menfolk stand bye smoking cigars and talking politics etc. This is something that has never sat too well with me personally, and I wonder if anyone else share my thoughts on the matter.
Now I do not have a wife and children and I am not religious, I do not believe in an afterlife and I am all for equal rights. So if I was in a situation where there are, say lifeboats with the capacity of filling half the ship, I would fight tooth and nail to get on one because my life is pretty important to me. I can only imagine but if I had a wife and child I would fight for them to enter first before I but I wouldn't extend this sacrificial generosity to someone else if it was a matter of life and death.
Now I tried to engage in prolonged discussion with a friend about this, and was met with horror, apparently my life is not worth as much as a child or a woman and I am selfish for wanting to save it. I should also say this particular friend is religious and believes in an afterlife, which I think severely impairs their view on this situation, from my perspective at least.
We live in a society (the west that is) where equality and individuality is held in high regard so maybe this whole idea of sacrificing yourself for random women and children is no longer relevant?
But the film itself is not the discussion point here, rather I want to talk about emergency scenario etiquette and how it is today. Now the old wisdom appears to have been "Women and Children first", they fill the lifeboats/escape vehicles and then the menfolk stand bye smoking cigars and talking politics etc. This is something that has never sat too well with me personally, and I wonder if anyone else share my thoughts on the matter.
Now I do not have a wife and children and I am not religious, I do not believe in an afterlife and I am all for equal rights. So if I was in a situation where there are, say lifeboats with the capacity of filling half the ship, I would fight tooth and nail to get on one because my life is pretty important to me. I can only imagine but if I had a wife and child I would fight for them to enter first before I but I wouldn't extend this sacrificial generosity to someone else if it was a matter of life and death.
Now I tried to engage in prolonged discussion with a friend about this, and was met with horror, apparently my life is not worth as much as a child or a woman and I am selfish for wanting to save it. I should also say this particular friend is religious and believes in an afterlife, which I think severely impairs their view on this situation, from my perspective at least.
We live in a society (the west that is) where equality and individuality is held in high regard so maybe this whole idea of sacrificing yourself for random women and children is no longer relevant?
Shanadeus on
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No, women and children first is no longer relevant. Personally, I rank people by their fashion sense. People wearing rainbow-coloured anything, mullets, or hammer pants go down with the ship.
Having studied the Titanic as a hobby, I've come across this issue before. You have to appreciate Victorian/Edwardian culture, wherein a man is the unquestioned head of the family, but this also requires that he puts the security of his family above his own interests, including his life. I believe this would be where Women and Children First comes from, but since such a heirarchy has been largely demolished, I can see how it no longer makes sense to offer one gender over the other the right to live. I still disagree with your extension of this to children.
On a semi-related note, the Women & Children First doctrine was not consistently applied aboard Titanic. Some officers followed Women & Children First, allowing men to board if nobody else was around. Others followed Women & Children Only, refusing to let men board even if nobody else who qualified to get on was around. I agree that such strict standards was rather foolish, and the lifeboats could easily have taken four or five hundred more people.
If anything, I'd say the bigger injustice aboard Titanic wasn't Women & Children First, but First Class First. As you know, many Third Class passengers were kept below decks until the stewards were given the go ahead to unlock the barriers, by which time most of the boats had been launched, criminally empty. More First Class men were saved than Third Class children.
It'd be for their own safety.
There's also the cultural assignment of women to child care, so that "children first" always meant letting on women as chaperons.
I have no idea where I picked that up, however.
What if I said that your life was more worth than the life of a child?
This does sound horrible (as it should, or some fundamental human instincts would be lacking in you) but it makes sense when trying to evaluate lives objectively.
Significant time and money has been spent on your development - which would all be spent in vain if your life was to end prematurely before you've contributed enough to society to offset that time and money. An infant has as you say more life to live but have had less time and money spent on their development and are thus a smaller loss.
And we have as you pointed out no danger of dying out as a species so the continuation of the species argument is pretty weak and really only brought up because that's how we feel due to biology.
When people say this it's meant as a general rule. Yes there are always exceptions.
But I think my reasons for this are fairly well emotional. Even so.
I'll allow an appeals process where super scientists can let me know they're carrying the cure for cancer or something. Nobody named Baltar, though.
I now picture you standing in front of the lifeboats, fire ax in hand, yelling "Stop! Hammertime!"
Unfortunately, the polygraph processing and analysis proved to be a bit of a hassle.
Regards,
Future-Ghost Captain Descriptor
Women and men should be subject to the same wait times however
Imagine what would happen if there was no feeling of Women and Children First. The crowd would panic and it would quickly devolve into Every Man for Himself, where manly men would be picking up children and delicate ladies and throwing them overboard while the ship was sinking, improving their odds at getting a seat on the lifeboat.
If you're ever in a position of authority when a crisis hits, you'd better at least pretend you have a system in place or else everyone around you is gonna revolt.
This thread is not a "debate." It is merely "stupid."
There is a system in place. It's called get in the life boat quickly and orderly.
Also, incedentally,
You've lost me.
That works both ways.
The most likely to survive outside of the boat should go last.
Or you could quickly kill the babies aboard to make room for older children and adults as babies have a lesser understanding of their imminent death and future.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of utilitarianism.
Now, a highly trained brain surgeon who advancing our current knowledge in neurology is a highly expensive person. It would take decades to train someone up to replace that doctor.
So I say, drown the the children.
Red shirts last. That is the only rule.
Thread over!
Anyone with sometime directing large crowds or who has worked in the emergency field can tell you, when everyone is panicking, no one will pay attention to legitimate authority if they seem confused or unfocused, whereas people will flock to someone who seems calm and focused, even if they're irrational.
Lots of people tend to forget this when something bad does happen, unfortunately.
The biggest problems I've encountered in emergencies are: a) people also try to assume authority where they really shouldn't have any, I've witnessed nursing students and veterinarians tell people they're doctors and try to take control of a heart attack victim from EMTs (luckily, our crew didn't listen to them whatsoever, which is good because the nursing student was telling us she was a doctor and the patient was having a seizure). b) people, even people with training who should know better, ignore the emergency and assume others will take charge. c) Although I've never encountered it, I have heard some horror stories of people actively working against rescuers, either because they're upset at someone in danger, they're whacked out of their gourd, or they're suffering survivors guilt.
As to the subject of women and children first, professional rescuers will tell you the children part still applies as long as they are actually being rescued and not sent out into the cold to avoid one death only to stumble into a longer, slower one. When you get to sorting through the adults, gender doesn't come into play that much, though not being an asshole to your rescuers will probably help!
sig i made this post already
it is mine
you can't have it
ever since the Titanic, there have to be enough lifeboats on a ship to carry every single person on the ship. With room extra just in case.
At that point, what other types of transportation are you even going to worry about? Planes? You're all equally fucked. Trains? Just run the hell away.
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When it comes to real people, I'd say any form of orderly evacuation is preferable to disorder. "Women and children first" works better than "everyone for themselves." We can always have debates about the value of different subsets of people, but as we can see, that gets ugly quickly. The sinking ship has a convenient loophole: in a time of crisis, any organization is preferable to chaos. Personally, in such a situation, I'd go for children first.
Also, red shirts are to be used as rafts.
The problem with going "Women and children first" is that it's a rather old notion that would probably be met with more resistance by the non-women and non-children nowadays, easily leading to disorder:
What Quid said too:
Just line people up, including children that can stand and walk on their own while those that can't are carried by one parent, and get them in the boat quickly and orderly.
Kids first sounds alright.
Nobody ever follows these "rules" anyway, right?
To be fair, those kids were clearly having trouble with the door.
Everyone wants these rules to be in play and that other people follow them so that things don't turn chaotic.
But most people, instinctively even I'd argue, probably won't follow these rules personally if it leads to their death.
I second this, productivity first. We have a trade deficit, dammit!
But there should be some weight/size considerations. The more productive (or potentially productive) people you can cram on the lifeboat, the better.
In response to the thread title: It does still hold up for many people, who would likely be a problematic barrier for anyone wishing to change the old rules in an actual emergency situation.
To be realistic for a while. I would maybe watch a couple of rafts fill with kids, but before long I'd be sitting in one of the remaining rafts. I doubt I'd feel bad about it unless I actively shoved someone off.
The best solution though:
If there are not enough rafts - the crew knew this and are responsible. Or at least the closest responsible party. None of the crew get on the rafts, and the rest can see how many passengers can fit.
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