The history of “women and children first”
I’ve got an article up today at PJ with some background on the old (actually, not all that old) “women and children first” rule in maritime disasters.
Please click on the link and read the article first, and then come back and watch this:
In warm Mediterranean waters with the shore practically in spitting distance, on a ship resting on a shallow bottom, it’s frankly disgraceful that anyone died in this wreck. Not just the captain but the entire crew failed miserably at their job. Except for the violinist and a guy dressed as Spider-Man.
Being, as feminists and liberal society in general would have us acknowledge, stupid, violent, rapist, clumps of carbon, men find themselves taking a measure of the situation.
It should come as no surprise that they have decided to remove from its pedestal innate male protectiveness and put in its place the ultimate urge — self preservation.
A progressive century worth of re/un-making men and you reap what you sow:
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful.” –CS Lewis–
Women, and nouveau man liberals, may have their paradigm male as they like him but they may not have him every which way.
Imagine the conundrum this poses for feminists. (Not that any will be in evidence in such an emergency.)
We’re all equal, and should all be treated the same, with no patriarchal deference or other oppression, unless of course such deference would be damned handy in the circumstances, in which case King’s … er … Queen’s X applies for the duration of said circumstances, after which the bleating about oppression by the patriarchy will resume.
“Expediency” is such an ugly word. “Flexibility” sounds so much nicer.
Thank you Neoneocon for your as-ever thoughtful posting!
And thank you George Pal, for your comment, esp. the C.S. Lewis quote…quite powerful. I’m sure there is/should be a feminine counterpart to that quote-of what women have lost of their own noble virtues.
The song is rather sad, and really, the men as expendable meme can only stretch so far, because overall, it is untrue.
Its a matter of upbringing. Although I grew up in Iowa, I come from a southern cultural (mixed with a bit of Shawnee) code of conduct. Its rather simple: men have a duty to protect women and children, as children, and women to a much lesser degree, are not as capable as men in a dangerous situation. Its not a matter of a man considering himself expendable, its a matter of a man doing what is right.
I beg to differ. We are, in fact, expendable.
Parker– I agree! Also, I think we all need to do what is right; I hope I will protect and help when needed, too.
Occam’s Beard– define your terms? We are all expendable… in a sense… but for Pete’s sake, how do the women get pregnant? It’s guys who make husbands and fathers, and so much more.
Well written post at PJ.
mary b, turn it around. If you were trying to increase the breeding rate of a species, would you increase the number of males or females?
Reproduction is first-order in females, but zeroth order in males, by which I mean that halving the number of females would generally halve the reproduction rate, whereas halving the number of males need not necessarily make any difference at all (apart from social conventions, which are malleable). This is why, in a biological sense, the only relevant one with respect to reproduction, males are expendable.
It is also for this reason that efforts to control, e.g., the dog population focus on the … uh … bitches. Apart from behavioral reasons, there’s little point in neutering the dogs. Missing a few is indistinguishable from missing them all.
Great article, neo!
People have been going to sea for thousands of years, but in earlier times they were almost all men. In the pre-steam era, ships usually sank in storms or when they hit rocks, and they tended to sink pretty quickly. Women didn’t travel on ships in large numbers until the wave of immigration to the New World in the late 19th century.
While the Titanic is the most famous shipwreck of all time, the peculiar circumstances of its sinking make it an outlier. Up to that time, there was no requirement that a ship carry lifeboats for everyone on board, because they were of little use when a ship was breaking up and sinking rapidly after being driven onto the rocks during a vicious storm.
In all the countless hours that I played with G.I. Joes when I was a child, it never once occurred to me that its fingers were perfectly positioned for posing with a guitar.
“I beg to differ. We are, in fact, expendable.”
Occam,
I understand what you are saying; for the survival of the species males are indeed expendable. But from the perspective of the individual male, he is not expendable. So what makes him protect children and women at the risk of his own hide? IMO the individual male, in a viable culture, is taught, from the cradle onward, that he is obligated to protect children and women when dangerous circumstances arise. Otherwise, he is not worthy of the mantle of manhood.
Unfortunately, manhood has been vilified by the unisexual leftists.
Parker, arguably we are but nucleotide transport and delivery systems.
I’ll never forget my first delivery.
Have you seen the Mark Steyn article at NRO?
The Sinking of the West
If I understand the time stamps correctly, Neo beat him by an hour. I’m assuming that NRO uses EST and PJM uses PST. So I don’t think there was any plagiarism involved, but the similarities between the two articles are stunning.
There is a brilliant science fiction story in which a crew of 50 (or some largish number) women and one man travel to Mars and approximately 270 days after landing, every one of the women gives birth. Wish I could remember title and author.