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.
NO! I like that place! It’s mine!
*hunches over cocoa mug and growls*
I wonder what evil feminazi caption could go with that xD
(i wanted to share one where I’m in costume too, but it pales to the other 2 girls xD )
MRAL, poor you. Go be disposable elsewhere.
Zarat, is “bigot” the only word you know?
I FEED MY CATS DRY FOOD BECAUSE FEMINISM.
Ami, that pic is adorable!
Ami – That picture has a woman wearing a shirt saying “Faithful.”
IRONY AMIRITE?
/can barely tell she’s sarcastic anymore
Yawn, another issue that MRAs whine about but don’t care about-boat safety.
In the Coast Guard they taught us how to do CPR on women and children, and also how to imitate doing it on men so bystanders would think we tried, instead of just laughing and letting them die.
@Pecunium,
CB: To be fair to White Star, they didn’t have the materials science to know the significant brittle-making effect the cold water would have on the hull.
But they did knowingly use rivets that were subpar even by the standards of the time.
I can’t seem to copy and paste the NYT link on my phone, but there’s an article from 2008 that makes this argument.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/17/todays-letters-our-forces-toy-role-models-should-be-of-both-genders/
Re: Heroes Force’ 100% Canadian, Joe O’Connor, Jan. 14.
I’d like to thank Shannon Thibodeau for representing our Canadian heroes with the Heroes Force action figures. Our children need to recognize the Armed Forces as a vital aspect of our country; playing with Canadian action figures will foster national pride.
I just hope that Mr. Thibodeau can produce a second line of figures, featuring the women of the Armed Forces. I know that I would love to purchase a female Canadian Forces action figure for my niece, whose aunt is a chaplain in the Army. Canada is a nation with a policy of equal access and full gender integration in its Armed Forces. Let us hope to have a series of action figures that represents this policy as well.
Mary Frances Jung, Toronto.
Strange, I thought being in the army was proof of how much we hate men and that we don’t want women to join, and mothers CERTAINLY wouldn’t want to encourage their daughters and nieces to join, and how could women be asking for female military action figures to inspire future female soldiers? O_O
This woman is almost talking as if it’s an honour in Canada to be part of the military. As if, we have tributes, and politicians talk glowingly of soldiers, their sacrifice and national pride… but… but… I thought we spat on soldiers and celebrated their deaths? o: That’s why the military and men are tied together right? And the reason most soldier figures are male is because being a soldier is a dishonourable duty and we hate men right? o:
MRAL: But it might be a more pleasant place overall without, well, you assholes.
Then WHY are you still here!
I don’t go read and post at MRA blogs or forums.
I don’t go read and post as feminist blogs I disagree with (and even besides Hugo’s, there are some).
All of us assholes would prefer if you went off to find some people you want to hang out with who might actually like hanging with you and stop playing the faux victim card here.
WHY don’t you stay away as you keep implying you will?
HINT: When I am tired of reading on the internet and want to go to bed, I just go–I don’t announce it everywhere–anybody who understands the basic internet knows you don’t have to announce every move. Announcing that you are LEAVING and then weaseling back and saying you just meant that thread is a dick move.
I found AntZ in Animal Crossing!! O_O
I know you’ve already responded to this, but I have to add my reasoned commentary:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
So funny. Can’t breathe.
I didn’t quite trust the Christmas miracle, as I remembered the “I’d like to gouge out her left eye” far too clearly. Welcome back MRAL, welcome back. Now with even more whining.
MRAL: Ya know, if you weren’t who you are, I’d be willing to talk about the extent to which the post-capitalist consumer behemoth global corporations which are (to my perhaps jaundiced eyes) outweighing national governments in scope and power consider ALL FUCKING HUMAN BEING disposable.
TPTB don’t give a flying fuck about any of us.
The problem with having that discussion with you is that you’re so farking solipsistic and narcissistic that you don’t really give a damn about anybody but you: you don’t care about other men (you haven’t called the posters here you know are male Alpha Fucking Dicks that can recall–but that may have slipped my mind–so many trolls, so little originality, but you don’t exactly who any awareness of the very real oppressions that many men face in a kyriarchical system). You sure as hell don’t care about women who all have it better than you. You truly don’t see anybody here as real except yourself–I’m not sure I even buy the “oh poor me” lip quiver woobie act you’re trying to put on as reflecting anything other than “Q didn’t work to manipulate them, so let’s try C.”
No, you’re not a speshul snowflake deserving of all that is good.
Yes, life is fucking unfair.
Yes, most people around you probably don’t give a damn if you live or die–why should they? What have you ever done to make anybody care about whether you live or die?
So what’s fucking new about that situation? You think you’re fresh and original and edge because you come up with this tired old shit again…and….again….and….again?
Derailing the cat thread into DOGGIES: right now, I have a chubby chocolate lab snoring happily by my feet. She’s a TRIPLE rescue dog: about six years ago, we found her soaked, on the highway, in a horrble rain storm (Sorry for those of you who read this on my LJ already, but um, just skim down!). It took us about ten days, but we found her people. YAY, happy.
A few years later, we found her on the road again–confirmed it was the same people-they said “oh we’ve been trying to get rid of her, you can keep her.”
We had too many cats and dogs at that point to keep her, so we found her a lovely home.
Downside, the woman is moving to California, and so we have Katie back: she has to be indoors (she was indoor dog, and our other two dogs would probably kill her to preserve the pack territory).
Luckily she is good with cats: after only about 48 hours, she’s trying to lick them all and she lets them steal her food (of course our vet has told us to put her on weight reduction diet, she’s 93 pounds, needs to really lose 40, we’ll hope for 20). I’m taking her to school with me because she cannot stand by be alone and freaks out–this way, I can take her on multiple walks during the day (WEIGHT REDUCTION, and good stress reliever for me as well).
Working with a lovely chocolate lab snoring happily by your feet is rather pleasant, if nap-inducing.
Her name is Katie; we only threatened to call her “Bad Penny.” We drive by her ex-home every day and have so far nobly resisted throwing bricks at the house.
Now that I’ve read the thread, I am tempted to say, dang, waste of time on smackdown of MRAL, but then remember: 1) I type fast.
2) He’ll be baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
Maybe this time he can make it 36 hours instead of a mere 25.
Was Goose the world’s dullest troll, or what? It’s hardly even worth telling him “Yo mamma’s so fat she can’t fit into a bag of holding.”
Not actually related, I just got reminded:
Aw, Katie sounds like a sweetheart, and she’s lucky to have turned back up to you. I hope there’s a special hell for her original owners.
Do you have pics of her?
I am sure the Spearheaders will be delighted to know that the missing (and at this point, probably dead) include an elderly woman and a 5-year-old girl.
Katz, the Goose made Brandon look smart.
No, he doesn’t. Brandon was more narcissistic, but not actually smarter. I mean, this isn’t high praise, they’re both lackwits, but let’s not get the rose-shaded glasses over yesteryear’s trolls.
CB: I recall an examination of the wreck which showed the plates splitting along the rivet line, but not the rivets shearing/popping.
It was, however, not as recent at 2008.
Ami: The only Canadian I’ve seen being less than supportive of the troops was Michael Coren (that twisted, little fuck): who spat on the achievements of Trooper Karine Blais, of the Van Doos.
@Hellkell: I do! I have them on my Livejournal (cannot tell you how much I grimace at LJ’s name).
I’m not sure if I can link to them–will give it a try!
Katz: I’d say Brandon was smarter. He knew when he was being pounded; and would just clam up, as if it wasn’t happening. It was a form of avoidance, but more intelligent a response than Geese (who couldn’t even be arsed to find a real website that insulted women; he just made one up so he could have an “edgy” link show up when one moused over).
Geese seems to think the last word = victory; even more than Brandon did.
Rats, the way it works on LJ, I get some programming that embeds the picture. That doesn’t work here (I tried a while ago), and I’m not sure how else to handle it. I dno’t have any accounts with photos, or any other accounts.
And Geese was also here to “count coup”. Now he can say he bearded the feminists in their own den and showed them who was boss.
Who will there be to say him nay?
XD
@Pecunium,
Yeah, I don’t know enough about ship building to know if the argument is valid or not, but it does appear some corners were cut in the construction, partially due to a shortage of premium iron rivets.
Wikipedia, FWIW, tells me that the Titanic actually had more life boats than was then required by law for a ship of it’s size–life boats were apportioned by tonnage, not passenger capacity. So, the tragedy was as much a failure of regulation as anything else. The Invisible Hand didn’t come through on this one. Color me unsurprised.
BREAKING NEWS: My kitty is trolling my husband. She is lying on his keyboard typing “lololololololol…”
If Goose brags on the internet, and no feminists are around to contradict him, is he still a shallow, pretentious mediocrity?
MRAL, Never mind these snarky mother fuckers
I am enticing a friend to Photoshop a background onto the Femanazi Cat Owner (assuming he ever answers my Skype).
Any text suggestions?
I admit it; I’m a mother-fucker. And, after the kids go to bed, I’m hoping to be a mother-fucker yet again. Depends on how tired we both are.
Not my mother, mind, but definitely a mother.
I’ll have you know I’ve never fucked anyone’s snarky mother.
Awww! Katie sounds adorable! Doggies. I love them and shall thus continue the derail.
Both of my dogs are about 11, and I have one laying next to me and snoring softly with a huge scar on her belly from where the vet just took out her spleen. And the other dog has been hoping around on three legs a bunch lately, and when we took him to the vet they couldn’t see a damn thing wrong with him. (Except it turns out he has a pin in one of his legs. So at some point when he was on the racing track (he’s a rescued greyhound and retired athlete) he must have broken it.)
addressing the article that david posted…
wow, typical right-wing nuts blaming feminism for, what, men not being “chivalrous” enough.
sorry, Ms. conservative, I’m not laying my life on the line for you just because you were assigned a label at birth based solely on your genitals.
Brandon, is that you?
Jacques Futrelle’s indoctrination as to his own inherent worthlessness is what killed him, if he had the option to board a boat.
I had to delurk to mention that this is the most stupid fucking thing I have read in a while.
Congratulations!
who are you addressing, Lauralot?
“I challenge you to find anything that has ever been said by any Spearhead poster about feminists that is as angry as this.”
What a challenge. Right off the top of my head, there was one Spearhead commenter named Zebert, who famously proposed that the solution to feminism would be to remove baby girls’ voiceboxes at birth. That sounds more than angry. It sounds utterly horrifying.
“When you accuse MRAs of wanting to “put women in the kitchen”, you betray your own stupidity and ignorance.”
The Spearhead wrote an article last year titled, “How Female Suffrage Destroyed Civilization” and it was almost unanimously beloved by the commenters. Only two or so peoplle said, “That’s a bit extreme” but they were given 40 or more downvotes (I know how much you value downvotes as a sign that someone’s opinion is wrong).
So Antz, do you agree or disagree that female suffrage has led to the downfall of Western civilization? You better say yes or else you’re a mangina.
Wrong thread, sorry.
So while I haven’t seen an MRA explicitly state, “Women belong back in the kitchen”, saying that life was better before women had the right to vote is equally pigheaded and misogynistic.
And I could go on and on and on about the many comments I’ve read from MRAs and MRM leaders that are far worse than “Women belong in the kitchen” could ever be.
I’ll have you know I’ve never fucked anyone’s snarky mother.
Pity. You’re definitely missing out. :)
I fucked a mother once. Well, she fucked me? Anyway, she is snarky.
I mean, snarky sure. Just never anyone who had kids. Not that I wouldn’t, I just haven’t.
There once was a man called Oedipus Rex
You may have heard about his odd complex
His name appears in Freud’s index
Because he LOVED HIS MOTHER!
No word on whether she was snarky, but I’m guessing yes.
I just wanted to say that in honour of Jacques Futrelle’s sacrifice, I downloaded one of his books from Project Gutenburg. No need to thank me!
Also I totally oppress my male dog by not allowing him to terrorize and steal food from the female dog. Silly me with my desire to socialize him out of his food aggression!
Anyway, in re: the Titanic, I think David’s great-grandfather did a very noble and brave thing. Giving up your life for others is the height of courage.
I mean, snarky sure. Just never anyone who had kids. Not that I wouldn’t, I just haven’t.
Well, you know what they say: once you fuck a mother, you’ll never fuck another.
(They say that, right?)
CB: Pity. You’re definitely missing out. :)
I have to agree. I’ve had a pretty good time with all the mothers who were willing to fuck me.
I’m really not understanding why the deaths on board the Conchordia are somehow attributable to feminism. Why are so many of the MRM gloating over the fact that women were killed as well as men and quite possibly children? Their priorities seem really screwed up to me. Nobody is claiming that in this day and age women have more right to places in lifeboats than men. Personally, I think that children and the elderly of both sexes should be going first and then it’s simply a question of “first come, first served”. Why is this even an issue? The problems seem to me to have been 1. A Captain who made a series of bad decisions and then abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble 2. An inadequately trained and possibly incompetent crew 3. Panicking passengers. The passengers may not have panicked if the Captain had been present and organizing the evacuation and the crew had been in evidence helping to supervise and reassure people, the evacuation have been quicker and safer with fewer, if any people killed.
Both the Titanic and Luisitania disasters are largely irrelevant, they happened many years ago and society has changed a lot since then. The whole “women and children first” thing is a furfy and completely out dated. As a feminist, I don’t expect to be given priority under those circumstances and neither do I want it. What I do expect is a reliable Captain, a competent crew and enough lifeboats.
One thing I’ve always found creep with many of these MRAs is how delighted they are when they find out a woman is hurt (example: breast cancer) or even imaging hurting a woman (trampling over one or throwing her overboard). You have to wonder about people with that kind of mentality.
And before anyone objects, I know that a good number of radfems have had similar attitudes. Neither is any good and downright disturbing.
Are we still talking about Al’s Theory of Disposability? Because women were always told that their ideas and opinions mattered so much, right? Totes more important. Women were denied education and the vote, denied the ability to join the army or physically exert themselves because society hates MEN.
I’m not young-young, but still under thirty, and even I have gotten the message from certain people that my thoughts have no value because I have tits. I’ve had people declare me wrong about stuff because they were older men and I was young and female. So just who is “disposable?” Who matters?
And of course Geese Howard is a douche. I’ve played the games. I’d expect no less. (I’m also not much of an SNK fan. Capcom all the way.)
They’re whining about female privileges, as they are wont to do. They always fail to grasp the simple fact that those privileges were conceived in more sexist times, when women were treated like children and chattel.
Well, there is the conservative guy David linked to who is mourning “the death of chivalry.”
MRAL:
For someone fond of boasting what a gargantuan IQ you have, you don’t half come out with some brain-numbingly stupid shit.
And the problem with your posts now is that I no longer know how to read them. You’ve pretty much reverted to your pre-confession persona, but since you confessed that this was deliberate trolling for effect, does that mean that you’re trolling now? Or were you lying to us during the big heart-to-heart?
Not that I really care overmuch, as you’ve picked up Brandon’s discarded crown as the whiniest and most tediously narcissistic poster here. And if you don’t enjoy posting here, if even the merest instance of someone looking at you the wrong way sends you into a howling rage… what exactly do you get out of it?
Oh, and what everyone else said: your behavior, specifically the way it swings so violently between raging abuse and whining self-pity and back again, is classically abusive. The fact that you’re the only person who doesn’t recognize this speaks not so much volumes as encyclopedias.
that fancy hot-chocolate place in Harvard Square.
Ooh, I love that place – and now I’m craving adorable ganache-filled chocolate penguins and mice.
Quoting burgundy’s eminently reasonable (and infinitely patient) comment as MRAL seems to have completely ignored it.
“The lack of noise re. the “Glass Cellar”, or the men who make up all the shittiest, most dangerous jobs.”
This is about class, not gender. You’re also leaving out one of the most dangerous jobs of all, statistically speaking – prostitution. Which is heavily female dominated.*
* Notice that unlike MRAL I’m not making sweeping generalizations in order to support my point. Sex work of all kinds is female dominated, but there are men involved, and it’s a dangerous line of work for them too.
* Burgundy
A wonderful explanation of the realities of patriarchy.
MRAs will ignore it, because it “FTSU” and makes their sad little “movement” redundant.
Hilariously, MRAs should be amongst the first to endorse this but instead recoil and scream “feminazi” at the word patriarchy.
What a bunch of losers.
Actually any radfems that are hostile to men are of the mindset ‘men can hurt eachother I can’t stop it but leave women and children out of it’ it’s cynical of course but I don’t blame them.
Incidentally, the most hilarous thing about that Spearhead write-up is that one of the commenters (I think AZ?) refers to the Daily Mail’s article as “feminist”.
The Daily Mail writers wouldn’t know what feminism was if it crawled up their butts, and the regular commenters might as well be MRAs.
The notion that the Daily Mail is feminist is one of the funniest things I’ve heard this year.
Mind you, I suspect the writers know perfectly well what feminism is, and I sincerely believe that more than a few of them are well aware of what absolute hooey they write. But it’s an exceptionally well-paid gig as far as journalism goes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were quite a few Faustian bargains being struck.
I couldn’t write for them under my real name, though – I was once hired as a freelancer to ghost-write a piece on behalf of someone else, and I felt soiled even then.
You don’t need to. The notion that shitty, dangerous jobs are exclusively a male preserve is so self-evidently ludicrous that it could only be put forward by someone with absolutely no critical thinking skills who’s glugged the MRA Kool-Aid as eagerly as a baby searches for its mother’s nipple.
Or a troll, of course.
Honestly, I think too much exposure to MRA ideas combined with all the trolling has broken his brain. He may have just intended to troll to start with, but words are powerful, and if you repeat them often enough sometimes you start believing them even if they are ludicrous.
In this respect his comment about Jacques Futrelle is especially revealing.
I don’t imagine for one millisecond he paused to think “Hang on a minute: this isn’t just a real person but the ancestor of someone posting here – is it really a good idea to shoehorn his death into an ideological point?”, but I certainly would have done, and suspect I’m far from alone.
Aw, I missed all the fun =(
I think the group “people who wouldn’t stop and realize that they were doing something appalling” pretty much consists of MRAL, NWO, and Meller. Even Arks would have enough sense to be quiet in this case.
So what was the argument? If we wanted equality that means men push women and children out of the way to get to the lifeboats first? Doesn’t sound very equal. Sounds like douchebaggery.
Joanna, that pretty much sums it up. anything bad a man does is the fault of women/feminism, which is what the spearheaders have been screaming for quite some time.