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).
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.”