MRAs and Children First: The Spearhead on the Costa Concordia disaster
From The Spearhead, where feminists dying is HILARIOUS.
Most of the coverage of the Costa Concordia disaster at the moment seems to be focusing on the Italian cruise ship’s captain and his douchey behavior, which involved not only running the ship aground but also abandoning ship prestissimo while passengers remained trapped on board.
MRAs, by contrast, are using the tragedy as an excuse to rail against the notion of “women and children first” and, of course, to make jokes about women drowning.
Now, the Titanic aside, “women and children first” isn’t now, and hasn’t ever really been, the standard way to evacuate those on a sinking ship, though many in the public — including some of those who were on board the Costa Concordia – seem to believe that it is. (See here for more details on how evacuations are typically handled these days; generally only those with mobility problems are given special treatment.)
In the case of this particular evacuation, some on board apparently tried to enforce an informal “women and children” policy, but many men weren’t willing to wait.
What’s got some MRAs in a snit is that some people, in the media and online, are calling these dudes cowards. In The Daily Mail, a right-wing British tabloid, A N Wilson wrote:
[I]n our day, with the advent of feminism and the professional woman, chivalry and manners are considered stuffy and old-fashioned.
As the father of three daughters, I do not, with a single fibre of my being, wish to go back to a time when women could not have the vote or get a university degree. Nor do I, surrounded by extremely strong-charactered and intelligent women in my family and among my friends, feel tempted to regard women as the frail sex.
But the fact remains that there is a longing among most men to protect women and children, and chivalry is simply a manifestation of that longing.
And whatever transpires about the reason for the Costa Concordia disaster, the disappearance of a chivalric code is a sorry reflection on society today.
This is not what you’d call a feminist argument; it’s a traditionalist argument, published in a tabloid rag that’s generally quite hostile to feminism.
Nonetheless, some MRAs are using the Costa Concordia disaster as an opportunity to deliver a big “told you so!” to the … imaginary feminists who live in their head.
Over on The Spearhead, where one familiar commenter actually described Wilson’s Daily Mail article as “feminist,” guest poster Lyn87 wrote:
The MRM is getting more vocal, and a lot of guys are now saying, “You wanted equality. This is what it looks like.” And they are saying it aloud and in public. Even a few women chimed in, saying that men have no obligation to die for women if women want equality. (Somehow I suspect there wasn’t much, “I am woman, hear me roar, watch me drown” on the Costa Concordia itself, but hey, it’s a start.)
MRAs: Always up-to-the-minute with their pop culture references!
This post was helpfully illustrated with a stock photo of a woman drowning.
Commenters got in their digs as well.
Keyster riffed on Lyn87’s incredibly au courant Helen Reddy reference:
I am woman hear me…blurp….rah…gurgle…raha…ffftt…orr…roar…gurgle…help me…somebody…fffft…please…blurp…help…help me please!
Aharon told both ladies and fish what’s what:
I eat fish. Fish don’t eat me. My life is too precious to sacrifice it so some spoiled bitch can have a pussy pass into the life boats.
Anti Idiocy got all hypothetical-cruise-ship tough guy on us:
Anyone who attempts to keep me on a sinking ship because of the genitals with which I was born is attempting to murder me. I have the right to respond accordingly.
And Thomas Tell-truth kicked chivalry – not to mention basic human decency — to the ocean floor:
Equality means that when the ship is going down and you are a woman, you had better get out of my way or you are going to drown with my footprints on your back.
Apparently Thomas Tell-truth is actually George Costanza:
Jeb, meanwhile, offered a more scientific rationalization for being a complete douchenozzle:
As far as I’ve heard, the one and only sport in which women naturally out-do men is endurance swimming. Women are also more bouyant, and as survivalists will explain, women float easiest on their backs (making it easy to breathe while expending minimal energy) whereas men float easiest in “the dead man’s float” (ie. face down, head in the water) and must expend more energy to stay alive. Furthermore, women have more body-fat than men which insulates them better against aquatic dangers such as hypothermia.
Given all these factors it is quite rational for men to pick women up by the seat of their pants and toss them overboard to make way for men and children to safely be rowed ashore on the lifeboats.
It’s all about doing the right thing and saving lives, after all.
MRA humor is very sophisticated indeed.
EDITED TO ADD: The Spearhead has put up a followup post, once again taking aim at imaginary “lifeboat feminists,” though the only person the post cites lamenting the end of “women and children” is Rich Lowry from the National Review (not a feminist publication).
Posted on January 18, 2012, in antifeminism, douchebaggery, evil women, gloating, MGTOW, misogyny, MRA, that's not funny!, the fucking titanic, the spearhead. Bookmark the permalink. 1,082 Comments.
See, this is a perfect metaphor for what is wrong with the MRA. In the real world, the lesson of the Titanic was to HAVE ENOUGH LIFEBOATS for everyone, so that anyone who made it to a boat could get on one right away, so there would be no need for a barbaric and frankly inefficient sorting mechanism like women and children first.
To the MRA, it was “for men to pick women up by the seat of their pants and toss them overboard.”
Real world: make things work for everyone. MRA: punish the women above all else!
Seriously, it’s kinda beautiful.
So MRAs would like us to return to a time when women had no skills – like, say, the ability to operate a lifeboat or to swim – nor any opportunity to learn these skills, and they would like to toss women overboard, knowing that in their ideal world, these women would drown horribly. Got it.
But it’s not really about hating women, is it? /sarcasm
But it’s totally about Men’s rights (to be misogynist buttheads), guys! Not hating women!
This seems to be roughly 1% about “women shouldn’t get preferential evacuation,” 9% about “men should be unloaded first, then women and children,” and 90% about “let’s fantasize in extremely enthusiastic detail about drowning women.”
And here I was under the impression that it’s only women who have rationalization hamsters. Someone better tell Jeb to get with the program!
I’ll go on the record saying I have no problem with getting equal access to lifeboats. But equal means men and women mixed in line. Equal does not mean “the women all drown in highly specific ways that appear to be sexually arousing to some of these guys.”
I wonder how many of them were wanking as they thought about all those women drowning.
It’s like they think (or hope) that it’s either “women and children first” or “men first” and there’s no other possible ordering system. It’s not like people move in amorphous gender blobs, so if you let one woman on a lifeboat she’ll drag the rest of the womanblob on with her, and you’d better make sure the manblob gets the chance first.
@Viscaria
I like your usage of “blob” because it just reiterates to me that these dudes are hallucinating on their red pills
The same amount as would have a boner-killing moment when (actually, if) it occurs to them that those men would then have to provide care and nurturing for the children.
“The same amount as would have a boner-killing moment when (actually, if) it occurs to them that those men would then have to provide care and nurturing for the children.”
Don’t be silly – of course a woman would have to be found to care for the children. There will be lots of women looking for a job like that after they’ve made sure that all the “lawyercunts” are fired for being women and thus clearly incompetent.
“The same amount as would have a boner-killing moment when (actually, if) it occurs to them that those men would then have to provide care and nurturing for the children.”
Damn those bitches digging into my wallet from their watery grave!
I love how they just assume women are going to stand passively waiting to get a life boat. Also you try to throw me off a lifeboat, then you are attempting to murder me, thus I have a right to respond accordingly. Namely me ripping your eyeballs out of their sockets.
It really is comical how over the top they are, and how unable to hide their desire to hurt women. I mean, OK, in theory let’s pretend that women and children first was still normal procedure. The way to fix that would be the remove that rule and institute some other system. Why does that system have to be “throw the women overboard”? Why does it involve NONE of the women getting a seat on the lifeboat?
@Cassandra
I once read a comment on the Spearhead, a guy said he saved that McDonald’s beating clip from a few months ago to his computer and said he watches it over and over again.
Abuser’s lobby, as clear as day.
I do think children should be prioritized to be saved first during disasters. They have their whole lives ahead of them. During the tornado, I wrapped my body over my children hoping that my body could be a shield for them. Several children lost parents that same way. At the Home Depot, they dug out a man with his two children held tightly in his arms. Their daddy died trying to save them, but none of them made it. To me, that’s the most horrifying thought in the world, that no matter what you do you can’t save your children.
I remember AntZ talking about the top ten worst things to happen to someone. In my opinion, the absolute worst is to lose a child. In fact, I think the reason parents sacrifice themselves for children is because we’re much more scared of outliving our children than of dying itself. I had to stop reading one article about the Costa Concordia disaster when one woman described a father trying to get her to take his child to safety and she couldn’t do it. It was too upsetting to imagine what that dad felt at that moment.
Ten bucks says Keyster can’t swim.
@ Quackers
That’s what I meant by wanking. It’s creepy enough that they obviously take pleasure in the idea of women being hurt and killed, but the fact that there’s clearly a sexual dimension to that pleasure is extra icky.
It should be children and at least one parent first if you absolutely must do an evacuation.
I have been on multiple cruises and I am shocked that there was no prepping on this particular one for a disaster like this.
That’s why it would only be a momentary boner-killer…..sorta like intermission…..
I should say “must do an evacuation with that kind of ordering.”
This makes sense. I’d also throw in there “at least one person per lifeboat who has the physical capacity to actually row/steer the lifeboat.” A rowboat full of nothing but five-year-olds, for instance, probably isn’t going to save anyone on board.
In unrelated but still on topic news: okay, so the MRAs are all “men and children” first. But does that mean male children or all children? Or is letting girl-children drown also okay, because they were just going to grow up to be spoiled lawyercunts anyway?
From studies done about reactions to events. Losing a child is top of the mark for bad.
Close behind that is being captured in a war.
After those come things like losing a limb, a spouse, contracting cancer.
There are a few things that MRA arguments always come back around to. Free drinks at bars, opening doors, grumpy women, and (whether they’re for or against them) freakin Daily Mail articles. It seems like a daily mail article is behind just about every MRA complainfest, and whether they’re for or against it varies.
I read the Spearhead piece and got linked to some of the pro-men-dying articles, and it’s absolutely fascinating how in almost every case, the authors rail against women being shunted to the back, and barely mention the children. To me it shows the strength of the male disposability concept (I would postulate that since some children are male, children come after women) and the extent of the pedestalization of women that is still rampant even in 2012.
Pardon my French, but suck it up. The children should be present, accounted for, and taken care of, and then it’s first come, first served.
JohnnyBB – I also notice what they DON’T complain about–which is anything they can’t blame women for.
Men’s higher suicide rate is a legit problem, for example, but MRAs don’t talk about it except as part of a list of Ways We’ve Been Done Wrong, because addressing that would require them to take pro-man action instead of anti-woman. (It also involves a lot of queer men and boys, and the MRM’s deep ties to homophobia and transphobia won’t allow that.)
All of the pressure on men to fit extremely narrow masculine social roles is a huge problem, but dealing with that head-on would require them to accept feminine/androgynous men and femininity/androgyny into their culture, and they’re way too invested in showing off and reinforcing their masculinity.
The MRM has a big ol’ blind spot for any problem that can’t be fixed by drowning women.
I don’t think “male disposability” is a real thing. I think “women and children first” comes from ideas of male competence–that men can go last because they can “take care of themselves” but women should be first because the poor dears need a little extra help.
It’s the same reason armies have been traditionally composed of men–not because they thought the men were disposable, but because they thought they were stronger and could fight better.
@Holly
Exactly, it’s all part and parcel of Poor disposability
On top of that, it was other men making those decisions. There were women who would enforce it but ultimately it was men making the determination that other men could be put in harm’s way.
The captain of the Titanic was not a woman-it was a man. So how exactly are women to blame for that decision again?
Esp. because it was men who decided the lifeboats weren’t really needed.
So, basically … Costa Concordia ran aground because of feminism? The (male) captain abandoned his passengers because of feminism? Evacuation for ALL was delayed to the point where some boats could not be lowered and people had begun drowning because of feminism?
Oh heeeeey, look who’s baaaack :-/.
@Shadow, I think Manblob Vs Womanblob should have been a cheesy 50s horror film. It’s The Blob meets The Bride of Frankenstein meets Mothra vs Godzilla.
I do think that it is a real thing in some situations, but more on the level of a “side effect” rather than “the driving force behind” that MRAL seems to think it is.
@You all: Tsk, you are disagreeing with MRAL’s theory of the world which is that males like him are totally disposable, and it’s all cruel and evil, and all the things women complain about really come down to male disposability, and it’s his life, and how dare we disagree with him.
All the rest of history and culture and experiences which contradict his “what I’ve seen in my life” are completely unimportant and unreal and not really important.
I get so bloody sick of the “women and children first meme” by asshats who don’t realize that everybody in steerage including women and children were NOT given access and as far as I recall (I’m almost done with lunch break) actively barred from the lifeboats. The chivalry issue which strikes MRAL as the most terrible thing ever was completely and totally classist, and NEVER applied to the majority of women (women of color, working class women, poor women, MOST OF THE WOMEN).
I’m adopting the “that’s nice, dear” plan with our returnee from now on.
“Women and children first” is a statement about women’s lack of competence – it’s literally putting women’s ability to take care of themselves on a par with that of children. Which is indeed sexist, just not in the way that MRAs think. I’m not sure how even they can take the rantings of a conservative journalist about chivalry as signs of a feminist conspiracy, but MRAs work in mysterious and not very logical ways.
Reminds me of the scene between Rose, her mother, and Cal in the James Cameron movie (and yes, I do realize that the movie is a work of fiction, not a docu-drama)
ROSE: Oh, Mother, shut up! Don’t you understand? The water is freezing and there aren’t enough boats…not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are going to die!
CAL: Not the better half.
No, Ithiliana, take a look at the Titanic’s survival rates. More (quite a bit more) women survived in the third class (way in the depths of the ship, where it was hard to even find the deck) than did men in the first class, where the deck was right next door. Women- all women- received extremely preferential treatment, which back in the day I suppose was to be expected, due to a combination of the concept of women’s incompetence and the concept of male disposability. These days, we’ve only done away with one of those concepts, but clearly it’s enough to rattle the Women First! real life meme. Unfortunately, not enough to prevent pro-men-dying articles after the fact.
And again, I point to the OUTRAGE re. women being shunted aside, and the relative silence re. the children. I think it’s because some children are male.
Too bad Cal was wrong (well, half wrong).
http://www.anesi.com/titanic.htm
First Class, Male Survival Rate: 32.57%
Third Class, Female Survival Rate: 46.06%
And for fun:
First Class, Female Survival Rate: 97.22%
I’m getting angry just thinking about it. In my opinion, the Corcordia is a goddamn miracle of God. I only wish the pro-men-dying articles were treated as the hate speech they are.
I remember AntZ talking about the top ten worst things to happen to someone. In my opinion, the absolute worst is to lose a child.
Ooh… I know people to whom this has happened. It is the worst thing.
I think the real issue isn’t actually supposed to be about whether women, children or men get to go first, but that everyone is evacuated in as orderly and efficient a manner as possible. From browsing around, that seems to be how it is indeed supposed to happen in the real world.
I believe the reason they abandoned “women and children first” wasn’t because of feminism, but because it caused families to be ripped apart. I’m willing to stand corrected on that.
@ithiliana
Actually, that’s not entirely true. Steerage passengers on the Titanic were not locked below deck, and they were not prevented from reaching the lifeboats. The fact that fewer steerage passengers survived than first or second class passengers (and fewer second class passengers than first class passengers), percentage-wise, has a lot to do with the location of their cabins and the fact that the emergency occurred late at night, when a lot of people had already settled in. This is still a factor when ships sink: the lower the deck, the cheaper the cabins — but being below decks means much longer time to access the lifeboats, particularly when you factor in the limited exit points and crowding. This is a consideration even today, if you book a cruise: lower decks have less safety in the event of a sinking, just like higher floors in a high rise have less safety in the event of a fire.
Of course, on the Titanic, although many steerage passengers survived, the likelihood of survival was still much more strongly linked to class than to gender — so the gist of what you said is correct. Although female survivors outnumbered male ones within each class of passengers, first class male survivors far outnumbered steerage female survivors.
Time to dismantle one “man boobz” bigot.
“So MRAs would like us to return to a time when women had no skills …”
Hey female-lawyer, are you capable of rational thought?
Consider Laura Wood, the “Thinking Housewife” and self-styled champion of men and traditional masculinity. Here is what Wood thinks about the sinking of the Costa Concordia:
“Men must take care of women precisely to prevent women from feeling the need to take care of themselves; a woman who feels the need to take care of herself is exactly what a feminist is.”
If MRAs wanted women back in the kitchen, you might think that we would admire a traditional stay-at-home mother like Wood, especially given her record of anti-feminism and vocal support of men and traditional masculinity.
Think again. Here is what the MRM thinks of traditionalist groups that want women back in the kitchen:
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/02/19/a-response-to-the-hysterical-housewife/
Here is one quote about Laura Wood, for those of you (all of you?) who are too lazy to go see for yourselves:
“She is worthless, untouchable filth. She should have been aborted with a chainsaw.”
I challenge you to find anything that has ever been said by any Spearhead poster about feminists that is as angry as this. Keep in mind that Wood is a self-described champion of traditional female roles, an anti-feminist, and a defender of men.
Please understand, I do NOT agree with this violent, terrible quote. However, I think it is time for you man-boobz cheerleaders to be slightly less embarrassingly misinformed as you continue your bigoted quest.
When you accuse MRAs of wanting to “put women in the kitchen”, you betray your own stupidity and ignorance.
Now, you can thank me for enlightening you.
MRAL, nobody here is arguing that women should be given preferential treatment in emergencies. I’m glad that “women and children first” thinking has been left behind in the days of the Titanic (although children should always be first). Who are you arguing with?
Anyway, it’s amazing that whenever a horrific accident or disaster occurs, you never see people on feminist sites cracking jokes about and/or pornographically describing the male victims’ deaths. Can we point Zarat or NWO to this post the next time they come on with their “hate movement” goofiness?
Oh, wait, he’s already here. Hi, Zarat!
Hi, bigot.
MRAL, that’s nice dear. You’re angry, go away.
I’m arguing that the concept- which apparently is still alive today, given the rash of pro-men-dying articles- is a result of the concept of male disposability, and in my opinion it is essentially a manifestation of hate speech, no different than if the KKK had a stranglehold on American politics. I’m not even kidding, think about it. What if the crew had tried to keep black passengers until last? Or hell, even the other way around?
MRAL, why are you so angry over sexism that happened 100 years ago? We live in a revolutionized sexual culture. No one here agrees with the practices on the Titanic.
And, honestly, how on earth is what happened on the Titanic in any way relevant to modern day gender discussions? It was a story of engineering hubris, but sexism.
MRAL, honey, the lesson here is HAVE ENOUGH LIFEBOATS FOR EVERYONE. It’s not difficult. If you don’t have enough lifeboats for everyone, children and primary caregivers first, with one person who knows how to operate the lifeboat per boat.
I do think that male disposability (specifically, the disposability of young men, poor men, and men of color in order to defend the rights of hegemonically masculine men) is a thing? But it’s definitely overplayed in the MRA movement.
If I were in a lifeboat-type situation I’d probably offer to give up my seat for someone else. I don’t want to live through the guilt of all those people dying while I lived.
AntZ: Your pro-MRM argument is that they want women to be aborted with chainsaws? Goodness. I’d hate to see your argument against it.
Somehow I doubt those aboard, including the men and boys, would much agree. I get the impression (correct me if I’m wrong) that you’re happy that they had to go through what they did, because it brought attention to something that makes you feel bad. So, their suffering helps… you.
Bleh. MRAL, your being ridiculous. What happened on the Titanic? Is not relevant anymore. Furthermore, it stems from a male enforced chivalry that based around women being less competent. Comparing that to hate organization where white men lynched black men for funsies is barbaric.
Let me repeat this, because it’s important. Men being socially expected to take on more risks to protect women is not the same as active and willful genocide. It’s just not.
(Though for the record, I don’t think it’s right either. I’m just talking about scale, here.)
Their beef with Laura Wood isn’t because they don’t want us to return to a time when women had no skills, voting rights, property rights, etc., they just don’t want the “white man’s burden” portion of those times.
It’s really frustrating to hear oppression of women–things like treating them as equivalent to children–reframed as proof of the evil of women. Most of the talk about “male disposability” is women being blamed for not doing things men wouldn’t ALLOW us to do. Argh.
Look here, them rules about women and kids going first is right on, because if not then in EMEGENCIES:
-Men would push the women out of the way to make it to the boat.
-Men would trample women and kids to make it to the boat.
-Women wouldn’t be strong enough to fight with a man who did a last minute cut in line.
-Men wouldn’t give women a chance even if some women made it to the rescue boat firstly and fairly.
-Women are weaker and they wouldn’t be able to compete with most of the men who are mostly stronger and bigger.
That’s why it’s mandatory that the physically weaker humans go first. If not, children and women would all perish because the tough guys most likely would fend well in emergencies by dominating the rescue boats and life suits just because they are tougher and can.
And finally, without women the community would die off so you need more women around than men around. It aint hard to get.
@Amused
You are as misinformed as you are bigoted and ignorant.
“Of course, on the Titanic, although many steerage passengers survived, the likelihood of survival was still much more strongly linked to class than to gender — so the gist of what you said is correct. Although female survivors outnumbered male ones within each class of passengers, first”
Here are the numbers, bigot:
First Class Women: 97%
First Class Children: 86%
First Class Men: 34%
First Class Total: 63%
Second Class Women: 86%
Second Class Children: 100%
Second Class Men: 8%
Second Class Total: 43%
Third Class Women: 49%
Third Class Children: 31%
Third Class Men: 13%
Third Class Total: 25%
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/titanic.html
Sorry you were lied to in college feminist-indoctrination camp. By FAR the most important predictor of survival on the Titanic was gender. First class men survived less frequently than third class women. And women were given priority over children.
Do you care to revise your ignorant and bigoted statement, nos that you have the facts:
“… the likelihood of survival was still much more strongly linked to class than to gender …”
According to the spearhead http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/04/11/when-titanic-sank-99-years-ago-this-week-people-were-more-honest-about-gender-roles-than-they-are-today/
324 women survived and 325 men survived the Titanic. Equality. The percentage of women vs men is much higher because there were many more men on board. Sort of the way people like to use black/white stats as if there are the same number of blacks and whites in the US. Pisses me off. If you use actual numbers you can sometimes get some perspective.
One thing about not being able to travel as much as men also means being less likely to die on a ship.
Not that the spearhead is the greatest source of things.
A greater absolute number of men survived the Titanic. Anyway. No one here wants men to be last in line. All we want is equal treatment. MRAs never seem to get the concept of “maybe we could oppress NOBODY next time!”
A single female pilot makes an emergency landing because of faintness and Lawrence Auster and the rest of the manly-men-doing-manly-things club call for women to be banned from all positions of leadership. It is telling that “traditionalists” and MRAs are not overcome with embarrassment over the extreme cowardice and lack of professionalism of the male captain and crew. Whither the leadership and objectivity Auster claims as exclusive to his gender? One might expect male passengers to be unconcerned with fellow travelers, but the crew members were responsible for the safe exit of ALL passengers, not just the women.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/021462.html
Auster uses a few complaints about the lack of a “women and children first policy” to avoid confronting the incompetence of the entire male crew. He’d never let a woman get away with a failure on this level without impugning the competence of her entire gender.
That crew was shoving its way past both men and women to get to the lifeboats. Just what about this sorry episode puts patriarchy in a good light?
Sarah, I’m not talking about men who individually decide to give their spot to women or anyone else. That’s fine, in fact it’s admirable and selfless. But when other men and women (often, it’s women, and I find that even worse) attempt to impose their own shit on other men- well, it’s not genocide, obviously, but it’s a real problem. And when it’s actually forced cooperation, that’s attempted (and possibly successful) second-degree murder.
Also, ozy, I agree that there should be enough lifeboats for everyone, but sometimes there’s not, or they can’t be launched properly (I guess the Corcordia started to keel real fast, or something?). And even if there are enough boats, and everything works out, and all men are saved, forcing said men to wait is still a manifestation of male disposability.
Bobbyjo: So let’s take a female Olympic athlete and a male couch potato. Who’s stronger? Gender is a really bad tool to use to generalize physical strength. If you want to rate people by physical strength using immediately visible traits, it’d be better to say “children and the elderly first.”
Xtra, that makes no sense. If women were not given preferential treatment, proportionally, they would have perished in the same numbers. They clearly did not. They were allowed to go first.
In my opinion, the Corcordia is a goddamn miracle of God.
Um, wow. No. Please turn off the computer and go talk to some real people, people you can’t pretend are NPCs in the video game of your life.
Hey, everyone, remember when Zarat used to pretend he didn’t hate women, and tried to convince us that his fantasies of VR girlfriends and women being segregated to one side of the country would be good for women, too? When did he give up on that and just go for the open misogyny? And what happened to all the hilarious sci-fi stuff? It’s like he’s not even trying anymore.
@Pam
“Their beef with Laura Wood isn’t because they don’t want us to return to a time when women had no skills, voting rights, property rights, etc., they just don’t want the “white man’s burden” portion of those times.”
This is what MRAs mean about the little “squirrel cage” in the feminist head.
http://manboobz.com/2012/01/17/rationalization-hamsters-or-hamster-rationalizations/
You just CANT accept what is right in-front of you, so you come up with … what?
Pam, you are either the dumbest person on Earth, or you don’t actually believe what you just said. There simply has not been enough TIME for the squirrel cage in your head to spin enough to come up with THAT.
I guess Bobbyjo thinks that all passengers should take a strength test before boarding. Then we can order them individually, first to last. Sorry Dolph.
There’s a point about the “women and children first” courtesy that hasn’t been addressed: in the past, the sheer bulk of women’s attire was for all intents and purposes a dead weight if women entered the water fully dressed. Men’s clothing did not hinder their efforts to stay afloat and swim anywhere near the degree than did women’s stays, heavy skirts, and layers of petticoats. Not to mention that men were more likely to be skilled swimmers than were women.
This was tragically illustrated in a sinking of a steamboat and barge on the Mississippi River during a severe storm in the late 1800s. Most of the people went overboard; most of the survivors were men. Children simply weren’t strong enough to manage the waves; most of the women swiftly sank from the weight of their heavy, water-soaked garments. This was commented on by the townsfolk who managed to find and rescue the comparatively few survivors, and who had to find the bodies afterward. So the chivalric concept was based to some degree on simple practicalities.
I meant the behavior of the passengers was optimal, not that the boat actually sunk. That sucks.
What if the crew of the Concordia had “informally” tried to enforce a blacks-first or whites-first policy? I wonder how people would have reacted.