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).
Man, talking about ships sinking really pulls the trolls out from under the bridges, doesn’t it?
I don’t know Vietnamese culture, and unlike you I don’t pretend to know. I’m discussing American culture here, because I live in America. And in America, women are not insidiously told they are expendable and worthless by registering for the possibility to be forced to get shot, after which no one will care. They have ten billion support programs for everything you can imagine. If injured in any way, everyone flips out. Hitting a woman is considered far worse than a man hitting a man, and a woman hitting a man is just HILARIOUS. I get the message. No wonder men commit suicide so much more often.
Geese Howard is unsurprisingly hammering on the math fails of one feminist on this thread while ignoring the whoppers his own side produced on this very thread, all the while making not so subtle references to supposed lack of mathematical abilities on the part of women.
Selection bias will later make sure that this idiot will continue parrotting evidence-free evo psych bullshit without self-examination, because he will delude himself into thinking MRAs are on the side of science and good math while feminists can’t do math at all.
BlackBloc:
“Geese Howard is unsurprisingly hammering on the math fails of one feminist on this thread while ignoring the whoppers his own side produced on this very thread, all the while making not so subtle references to supposed lack of mathematical abilities on the part of women.”
Photo or it never happened.
Geese: I’m the go to person for mental math in my gaming group – since we’re not doing HERO, otherwise we’d all be breaking out the graphing calculators. My questions: Can you read without moving your lips?
You’re USian. They’re not. Get a clue. Bush couldn’t even pass taxes to kill terrerists, nobody is going to get a draft for them.
You are worthless and useless, MRAL, but it’s because you’re a little shit.
You’re kinda in a tough place, mediocrity. See, if you don’t mean now, your opinion is worthless; you’re just looking at the parts that you think reinforce your “women receive preferential treatment” narrative and not even noticing that they’re not still current. You just want to complain about women. But if you do mean now (Actually, even if you don’t, because the final point of this post will still hold true), you have to actually do some research, which I have a sneaking suspicion you don’t know how to do, and you were kinda hoping we’d be cowed by your awesome grasp of ‘common wisdom’ *Suppresses giggle*
Two heads are better than one.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Opposites attract.
These little phrases are all meaningless and equally ‘common sense’. You, little mediocrity, made an empirical fact claim; that women receive preferential treatment, and implied that they continue to do so. You don’t have data to support your claim. You only have your presuppositions.
Other common wisdom
Actually, I very carefully avoided making a claim on the matter, mediocrity. If you’ll notice, I only pointed out that you don’t have the data to support the conclusions you’re making. There’s no reason to actually believe you’re accurate. By the way, ‘receive’ is present tense, so don’t think you can establish your point by restricting yourself to the turn of last century.
Hahaha, Geese’s name links to “pimpslappyville.com”.
Oop, I meant to go into those old just so stories like “Lightning is Zeus’ anger” at “other common wisdom”. Though I suppose I should have said “traditional wisdom”.
To me, the Titanic is an example of the recklessness of unrestrained capitalism (the White Star Line could have equipped the ship with more life rafts and used better materials for the hull rivets that gave way in the collision) combined with class privilige. I think the best measure of who was privileged is: whose children died? Overwhelmingly, it was the children of third class passengers.
Oh, Geese, some French profanity AND a reference to my mother — oh be still, my beating heart. On second thought, I’d think I’d rather die than be your fucking helpmeet, so why don’t you stuff that donut where the sun don’t shine. Because I’m sure your imaginary and inflated concubines can’t consume it. Or is the “donut” thing an obscure reference to your genitals? In which case, make sure you don’t hurt yourself.
Having done so, though, иди ты в жопу, урод, и сиди там.
Rutee Katreya:
I’m sorry, were you trying to say something? I can’t make it out under the rivers of Down’s syndrome that one of your feminist cohorts just sneezed all over my monitor.
I’d like to point out that the comparisons of this disaster to the Titanic are totally foolish. The main cause of death in the Titanic disaster was not present in the current one – freezing water temperatures and choppy nothern seas.
With as much discussion as has been given to the life-boat situation, I think that a main point has been totally overlooked, and that is that the lack of life boats isn’t solely the killer in the Titanic situation. If there had been just as few life boats in the recent disaster the result would still be different, and not due to chivalry or any such thing. The real killer of the Titanic was the freezing temperatures.
Of course the recent grounding did not have similar difficulties, while the sinking did happen at night, it was in warm waters that were as still as can be reasonably expected from such a large body of water. nether waves nor temperatures were in play to kill people simply entering the water, or from having to spend extended periods of time in it.
I’d also like to point out that swimming was a man-only sport for a very long time. It was rare for women to learn to swim at all, let alone effectively. Therefore some of the men who ended up in the water in the Titanic disaster were likely men who thought they’d be ok because they knew how to swim and were staying close to the boats. If the Titanic had gone down in Greece they would likely have been correct and the death tole would not have been nearly as high.
I’m just confused as to why anyone thinks that any of this proves anything about sexism in the present day. One hundred years is a very long time and passenger safety has come a long way. Deciding you’re expendable due to something that happened on the Titanic is as sensible as deciding what you should be wearing based on the “sensible dress” movement’s requirements for the weight of undergarments*.
*they should weigh less than 10 pounds when dry apparently.
Who is this Geese asshole, and will he ooze back to where he came from? What a dickhead.
MRAL, this place isn’t good for you, leave already.
Zarat, what kind of TRUTH are you going to teach us? Does your wife know that while she’s supporting you, you’re wanking over replacing her with VR?
“- Conscription (Most recently, Vietnam. I understand there is no draft now, but men are still the only ones who have to register for the possibility. It sends a message).”
Then work to make it change. To make women being drafted, or nobody being drafted. Either way, it’s not feminists that will fight you. Pacifists maybe.
“- Seemingly endless, endless, fucking endless women’s health initiatives (many run by the government) despite the fact that women live longer.”
Some health problem are sex related, and need to be addressed this way. Women’s health initiatives do no hurt you, though it seems you care more about diminishing help for men than increasing help for men.
“- The lack of noise re. the “Glass Cellar”, or the men who make up all the shittiest, most dangerous jobs.”
“all” is a big exaggeration and erase the condition of work of a huge number of women. But do make noise, fight, join fights to change mentality (masculine pride in dangerous and physical jobs) and safety regulation in dangerous workplaces. (hint: a more diverse -on a gender pov – is likely to decrease the general mindset that the job is a virile one and that safety does not matter. Or as you would probably put it: more entitled bitch in this jobs would make the government care about it)
Amused:
“On second thought, I’d think I’d rather die than be your fucking helpmeet”
That’s okay, I fully respect your decision as a woman and a human. You are every bit my equal and contribute just as much to this conversation as I do.
“Or is the “donut” thing an obscure reference to your genitals?”
Only when my girlfriend is getting intimate with my enormous shlong. Why d’you ask?
Hey, Goose, is your imaginary girlfriend’s name Ashley, by any chance?
MRAL: Xtra, we are talking in PERCENTS, not numbers.
Aren’t you the one with the classes in math? Because thats a really skewed way to use percentages.
If there were, say, 50 men and 10 women clustered around a boat, and the 10 women were allowed to go first, that is preferential treatment, and that’s basically what happened.
Are you arguing that the only “fair” way to allocate seats is to take a ratio which matches the overall ratio of passengers by gender? What about age? How about race? Where is this, “equality” going to end, and how is going to be enforced.
Will the quartermaster be required to count heads to keep the ratios correct?
Also… the first boats (the one’s with the greatest percentage of the 1st class passengers) weren’t full. Why they weren’t is an interesting question, but the motives which led to that also played into the problem.
Male disposability isn’t the category of problem you are trying to make it. Male disposability has a lot of factors (not least that men choose to take lots of risks), and you saying, “my conclusions support my justifications” is question begging. Unless (and until) a study is done which says the guys who were pushing and shoving were doing it because they thought society saw them as disposable; for being male, your conjecture is just that. You have no evidence, and no proof.
You are smarter than that, so you aren’t getting any slack.
Dude, really? You’re going to tell me what my great-Grandfather was thinking?
Jacques didn’t think he was worthless. He had a pretty decent size ego. He was also a bit on the reckless side — he was an early adopter of those newfangled automobiles and rode in cross-country races, when there were no real roads as we know them in the country, and which on occasion meant him driving into ditches.
He refused to get on the lifeboat though his wife pleaded with him to.
He was reportedly last seen standing on the deck smoking a cigar with John Jacob Astor. LIKE A BOSS. I guarantee you he wasn’t thinking, I’m worthless, better let those superior ladies live rather than me.
@Kyrie
You don’t seem to understand. No matter what men do to try and solve the issues that men face, you will always find Ze Feminists magically blocked them with their magic feministy feminism. The world is run by manginas and feminists, which is why straight, white men (and apparently some gay ones) can only vent on the internet!
AntZ: MRAs want men to be free … men cannot be free if women are enslaved.
No, men can only be free when women are all moved to the other side of the planet and VR sex games replace them.
Who has the fucking stoopid here?
Leave, little mediocrity. We’ve already noticed that your intellectual reach exceeds your mind’s grasp.
…At which point you’d probably start whinging about how 450 men and 150 women dying means that 300 more women than men managed to not-die, ergo male disposability. Also, what about those 20 percent that wouldn’t have made it at all? Was it okay to let them drown, because oh well, they were fucked anyway? Or is it more important to realize that “not having enough lifeboats” is a serious problem that should not be allowed to happen again if we value any human’s life?
Personally, I like to think that what we learned from the Titanic was that having enough lifeboats for 100 percent of the people on the ship and making sure said people know how to board them in an orderly fashion should be a Huge Priority. I also like to think the Costa Concordia was a horrible mistake made by a captain who turned out to be a fool and a coward at the worst possible moment, and that it was this foolishness and cowardice that cost lives. (Would anyone have died if he had immediately ordered the crew to turn out the lifeboats and the passengers to start boarding them, instead of being all “oh shit I must waste an hour covering up my foolish error”? It’s probably too early to know.)
Rutree Katreya:
“Leave, little mediocrity.”
Only if you thay “pleathe”.
“We’ve already noticed that your intellectual reach exceeds your mind’s grasp.”
Egads. Methinks the lady doth project a little too much…
Apparently, that would be me.
hellkell:
“Hey, Goose, is your imaginary girlfriend’s name Ashley, by any chance?”
No, but she’s sure prettier than YOUR sister.