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).
It seems only fair in that case that there’s a ref and everyone has to wait to evacuate until everyone else gets to the starting line.
Also we’d need rules. Can you grab other ppl’s clothing? Are you allow to low blow? Is cross checking allowed? Can I set moving picks? What if I take more than 3 strides before hitting a person? Is there illegal defense? 3 in the key? xD
Any minute now he’ll suggest that everyone should bring their OWN lifeboat.
I somehow get the feeling he’d actually have the worst survivability in any situation, b/c he’d either run off and get himself killed, or his attempts to harm EVERYBODY AROUND HIM to keep himself alive would force everybody to restrain him, or knock him unconscious xD
The “equal rights, equal fights” guys always make me extra sad because of their misandry. I don’t want men to hit women because I don’t want anybody to hit anybody. I don’t think it’s okay to hit a man! What’s wrong with these guys that they do?
(That was a rhetorical question; what’s wrong is that they want to hit women, and are trying to leverage the idea that traditional masculinity is all about fighting and toughness in order to give themselves an excuse to do so.)
Anyway, a “fight for the lifeboats” evacuation will have far more total casualties than an orderly one. People who could have been evacuated will get hurt in fights, lifeboats will leave with less than a full load to escape the fighting, and lifeboats might even get damaged or capsized in the ruckus.
And quite a few of those people who drown unnecessarily because the evacuation turned into Thunderdome? Will be men and boys.
Check your misandry, MRAs.
Actually I think efasfas is picturing something more like this.
Trish just wrote this about selfishjerkface’s idea of lifeboat procedure xD
“Good evening, I will be your lifeboat deathmatch coach for the duration of this cruise. Training meetings are at 05:00 sharp; anyone who misses three meetings will forfeit their lifeboat access for the duration of the cruise.”
@ Ami Angelwings
Yes like cage fights. Men are brutal with other men all the time and don’t care about the feelings of other men.
Ever heard of “suck it up like a man?”
What did you think men treat each other like princesses on an instinctual level? 😮
@ Bostonian
I’m part of the MRA? Another stupid victim based group of the slave morality?
Thank you for letting me know that. I never knew.
I could always trust feminist in deriving truth.
@ Ami Angelwings
Yes your not away that one a boat starts to sink. Panic upstarts and order goes out the window. The most civilized men can turn into savages. I suggest Lord of the Flies.
Reinforced social mores of the past have no bearing. The titanic most men died and women didn’t.
Really?! How much can you lift? Because I’m in weightlifting and running too! You can beat most men in running and weightlifting? Have any proof Amazon? Man Feminist not think men and women are physically equal as well? Fuck biology and any hard science! I’m a smart women who took Women’s studies 101. Oh yeah!
Wonderful! That just helps my case that we don’t need to give you privilege life boats and other areas as well. When push comes to shove you can compete like any man!
I’m feeling the heat!
Wow, I am so happy that the men I know aren’t like this to one another.
A phrase that tells men that they’re not allowed to feel things, or ask for help? I’ve definitely heard of it. And think it is absurd.
@ Holly Pervocracy
Hey equal rights women don’t get privileges on life boats. The same goes for war, and other domestic crises.
People trying to get to the lifeboat first doesn’t equal fighting.
Check yours.
Women privileges need to be destroyed!
So, uh, let me get this straight… women shouldn’t have the special privilege of being treated equally?
Also you seem to have a problem with understanding the difference between “the average man is slightly stronger than the average woman” and “any man can kick any woman’s ass.”
@ Viscaria
Maybe you just been privileged to share your feelings when men could not.
Besides open feelings is really suitable and ideal all the time really makes strong people.
If men who fight the majority of wars had open feelings I’m sure that would increase their survival! Talking about their feelings their buddy Joe just got shot really makes the squad work better.
Wow, you want to oppress the fuck out of men. They can’t even have human feelings because manliness is all about STRENGTH and KILLING and GGRRR HULK SMASH all the time?
I hope you don’t think you’re doing men any favors here. Some of them just want to be goddamn people.
@ Holly Pervocracy
Agreed. Which is why we need to dismantle sport segregation between men and women. Because women are just as strong as any man. I mean NBA vs WNBA, like whatever! I mean god those old fashion neanderthals.
I mean talk about sexism and inequality. This just promotes the evil patriarchy trying to control women.
And besides, separate but equal?! OMG! Thats like racist as well.
Uuuuuh… yeah. I totally have that privilege. I think it’s crap. You’re the one who seems to think denying men the opportunity to share feelings is a good thing o_O
@ Holly Pervocracy
No. Lets just talk about feelings till the cow come home because talking about problems solves them.
I’m an oppressor? Wow awesome. That must make me king.
Since they can’t express themselves, they aren’t people. Expression is a requirement to be a person.
Nice. Very intelligent argument.
I don’t know exactly how the military handles it (although I am very sure that “just bottle everything up, like a man” is not the policy there either), but in emergency medical services we have something called a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. A CISD is a meeting held after something horrible happens–you witness a murder, you care for a severe child abuse victim, one of your colleagues is killed or seriously injured on scene–in which the purpose is simply to talk about your feelings with your colleagues without judgement. This is something that very stereotypically strong and tough people, firefighters and police officers and EMTs, have to do. Acknowledging the fact that they have emotions doesn’t weaken them. It just means they’re human.
(To be honest there’s debate about the effectiveness of CISDs, but I hate to even get into this with a troll who’s working on the level of “real men don’t feel things that’s girl stuff.” Suffice it to say that although alternatives have been suggested to the current process, none of the proposed alternatives are “suck it up and walk it off, ya pansy.”)
Okay, I can tell you’re extremely dim, but picture two bell curves, almost but not quite overlapping. The strongest man is stronger than the strongest woman, and the average man is stronger than the average women, but if you pick a male and female individual at random, the odds are only slightly over 50% that the male will be stronger.
Do you even sort of understand? With your super logical manly mathbrain?
This means that a team of men who are elite athletes will be stronger than a team of women who are elite athletes, because men have a slightly higher top strength.
It does not mean that every man is stronger than every woman in the general, non-elite-athlete population.
(Also, the WNBA has nowhere near the funding, fanbase, and recruiting ability of the NBA. There’s nothing biological about that.)
Is efasfas NWOSlave? The writing style seems very familiar.
no, efafsas is a classic troll. He(?), doesn’t give a shit about what is being said, the point is to get a kerfluffle going and sit back and laugh.
After all, I have, “slave morality”, so I’m supposed to get all pissed off and ranty about something efasfas wants to laugh about. Like most classic trolls he’s in it for the lulz he gets from pissing people off; which is almost as good as the wanking he does about how pissed off he thinks people will get.
Which is sad, because he’s such a shitty troll I can’t parse his bullshit enough to get angry at it. Troll fail.
Actually it does-for one it solves the problem of what to do while waiting for the cows to come home.
efasfas sounds exactly like a guy who’s never been in a really serious fight and probably hasn’t thrown a punch since middle school.
Which is fine. It means he’s no different from most people.
But it does make his assertions that all out brawling is the best, most equal, manner of dealing with disaster/emergency situations especially funny. Should the cage matches begin before people start lining up in an orderly fashion or should we hold off until we’re certain there aren’t enough lifeboats for everyone?