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).
My contact at INTERPOL can neither confirm nor deny that.
Actually to me his explanation sounds more like “I had an argument whoever had offered to pay for the hotel rooms and my flight, so now I can’t go”.
It’s easy for you simpletons to laugh, you’re part of an institution that gets as much money as it ever needs from the state. If the Men’s Rights Movement was even HALF as well funded as Feminism, or The Pink Pistols terrorist group, there would be protests all over the world. Protests take money, but none of you would understand that because of the blank check the feminist state writes you to have your slutwalks when some woman stubs her toe and blames a man.
Do you honestly believe that men in this society can even afford a hotel or to fly on a whim? You fucking spoiled princesses amaze me with how out of touch you are with the real world.
Well, I just took the bus to the Slutwalk, but that’s because there are hundreds of feminists in my city. :p
You heard it here folks. No man in the US can afford a plane ticket or hotel room, because The Institute of Feminism has all the the money. Keep piling on the stupid aMiRA, it’s hilarious.
Who knew that “attending a protest that you yourself planned and that you consider really important, months from now” was doing something on a whim?
The sad thing is that Ami’s suggestion is actually a good one. If you’re a small political movement without much tractions then small local protests are the way to go, since they are easier to organize and likely to be picked up by the local news if you’re smart about it (and the national news feeds then pick up interesting local stories, and you can go from there). Problem is, these guys are too caught up in their delusions of grandeur to accept that that’s where they are right now, and that if they want to build something they need to do it from the ground up.
They may also just really suck at political organizing, but I do think a refusal to accept where their movement is at right now is part of the problem.
The most important movement for social justice in the modern age, and they can’t manage to get anyone to DC? Ok, so Elam can’t make it; who cares. This is BIG man! This is hugely important. The Feminist Overlords need to feel the fury of our Energy, bursting forth; it will be our “Manly Spring”, a gushing fountain of rage and power and focused energy.
We can’t let it fail just because Elam flaked. In our multitudes we must come forth and be counted, we must announce our presence with Authority. We Will Not Be DENIED!!!!!!
(this has been a Announcement from Peace and Freedom Enterprises, Subscriptions to our newsletter may be purchased with Ron Paul Gold Dollars, Silver Certificates, or drafts on Private Banks which keep their own reserves. No money will be accepted which has been handled by any agent of the [illegal] Federal Reserve [unless that money is backed in Pre-Roosevelt Gold Certificate] or any branch of the Rothchild Family, make all checks out to, CASH)
Pecunium – You forgot Bitcoins.
Shouldn’t jewels also be acceptable as coinage? Or does he think diamonds are about to lose their value?
Bitcoins aren’t tangible. Diamonds are overvalued; and controlled by certain merchants in the Netherlands and NYC. De Beers is just a front. GOLD is the only meaningful medium of durable exchange.
In a pinch, certain Madame Alexander Dolls could be used instead.
CassandraSays | January 20, 2012 at 4:40 pm
The sad thing is that Ami’s suggestion is actually a good one. If you’re a small political movement without much tractions then small local protests are the way to go, since they are easier to organize and likely to be picked up by the local news if you’re smart about it (and the national news feeds then pick up interesting local stories, and you can go from there). Problem is, these guys are too caught up in their delusions of grandeur to accept that that’s where they are right now, and that if they want to build something they need to do it from the ground up.
They may also just really suck at political organizing, but I do think a refusal to accept where their movement is at right now is part of the problem.
The problem is they’re always dreaming in technicolour : And it’s so all or nothing with them. They either want to hit it huge, or it’s not worth it to do the grassroots stuff and work towards down the road.
I should hire myself out to AVfM and co as a consultant 😀 It’s a better use of the $1000 they can raise whenever they need to to find out people’s real names and addresses.
LOLelam:
http://bighugelabs.com/output/lolcat7ed68057bc4da585e9bc86e966319635cb8bba2a.jpg
Hey Mr. Weg of Fors because you’re the only AVfM regular I know I can guarantee will read every post here xD
Pass that on to your buddies 😀 They can hire me and I can help them organize and protest better 😀
I could use the money (shoes don’t grow on trees) and it’d help me fund my Anti-Asian race traitor terrorism xD
I could also help you, Mr. Fors, find a better way to do activism than post 80 different msgs under 5 different email addresses into the NSWATM spam filter xD You’re obviously productive when you want to be, so you will be useful on team MRAmi 😀
Forweg really has a crush on you and Ozy, LOL.
Ah, if only I could have shared this lovely poem about chivalry with MRAL!
*sighs for all that is lost*
http://thehairpin.com/2012/01/are-women-people
Alice Duer Miller
Chivalry:
It’s treating a woman politely
As long as she isn’t a fright:
It’s guarding the girls who act rightly,
If you can be judge of what’s right;
It’s being—not just, but so pleasant;
It’s tipping while wages are low;
It’s making a beautiful present,
And failing to pay what you owe.
I don’t like the Fed, a gold standard, OR bitcoins (as they are, I think they’re a step in a promising direction, though). That much I know. It’s like my opinion on property being lockean, use-occupancy mutualist, or pure Georgist common taxable resource, I don’t know what legitimate property rights are, but goddamnit, they’re IMPORTANT, and we’re doin it rong.
I would have been open to circulating Madame Alexander dolls, but now I don’t wanna think about where they’ve been.
I’ll give you a raincheck. Rainchecks with my picture on them. And a little hologram in the corner.
ithiliana – Oh, what a cool link. I love the takeoff of Tommy.
“Oh, it’s women this, and women that and women have no sense,
But it’s pay your taxes promptly when it comes to the expense,
It comes to the expense, my dears, it comes to the expense,
It’s pay your taxes promptly when it comes to the expense.”
<3
@Zhinxy: I read them all (I love the POCKETS one best in some ways), and they’re all great.
GREAT.
I don’t think I’d heard of her either–and I spent a lot of time in the 80s tracking down 19th and early 20th century feminist writers after I became a……FEMINIST!
Xardoz:
“I’m really not understanding why the deaths on board the Conchordia are somehow attributable to feminism.
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.
Nobody is claiming that in this day and age women have more right to places in lifeboats than men.
Well, there is the conservative guy David linked to who is mourning “the death of chivalry.””
That’s the point, they’re no longer applicable and it’s that very attitude that we want rid of. They keep assuming that we want chivalrous behaviour from men when the vast proportion of us emphatically don’t. The gloating is really annoying and tasteless, though.
I meant the feminists here hadn’t been saying that women had more right to a place in the lifeboats. We don’t. The people who should be given seats first are children, the elderly and the disabled and maybe those who can’t swim ie: those who would have the poorest chance of survival without help. Sorry, I should have made my comment clearer on that point.
“Nobody is claiming that in this day and age women have more right to places in lifeboats than men.”
Really? The comments on the Daily Mail article on the accident prove you wrong…plenty of female comments about how ‘real men’ should be willing to let women go first. Y’all need to read a bit more outside your own sphere. Women on several news sites are lambasting men for getting into the lifeboats.