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).
Surely you jest
Now that he has an entirely unsupported theory of male disposability, can a Book of MRAL be far behind?
Little Mediocrity, I don’t have a sister. Got any better insults? Or is that the best your pointy head can come up with?
We have some first class trolls here, so you’ll have to see if you can bring your A game. Doesn’t look like it so far.
Oh little mediocrity, do you think this will make everyone forget you haven’t actually substantiated your claims? That you had a perfectly good opportunity to make your case and instead did… nothing?
How disappointing. And boring. I’ll return to grinding. Just a matter of which game I’ll do it in.
Translation: I don’t care about Vietnamese women who died, because they are not white Americans, and therefore don’t count as real women. Which perfectly illustrates the point that to the extent that women are privileged (for seats, opening doors and other minor courtesies), it’s only on condition that they fit a very strict standard of acceptable womanhood: white, middle-class, well-behaved, not “slutty”, not single mothers.
But Vietnam didn’t happen in America — did it? Way to bring a foreign war into the discussion and then claim that what happened to the population that was actually invaded is irrelevant to the discussion of that war. Seriously — how bigoted are you?
Really? Kind of like the way women are told that they are expendable and worthless when they are encouraged to flush decades of hard work down the drain in order to have babies, cook, clean, wipe asses, and keep the rugrats from bothering their father? Like that? Except that this happens every day, constantly, whereas your chances of being forced to get shot are pretty much nil.
Really? Everything you can imagine? Where is my paid maternity leave? The US is the only industrialized country that does not mandate it. Where are programs to help single parents, and simply parents, get adequate care for their kids while they earn a living? Why are insurance companies required to cover Viagra, but not birth control?
Unless they are Vietnamese, of course, in which case everyone doesn’t.
No you don’t. The message is irony. A woman hitting a man is incongruous. A man hitting a woman is just the way things are.
While male suicide rates are a legitimate issue, women aren’t to blame for it. And besides, for a woman and a mother to commit suicide is viewed as no different than simply walking out on her children — and that’s considered a lot more reprehensible than when a man does it. A sense of actual responsibility towards those who cannot take care of themselves — sometimes that’s all it takes to not off yourself in times of crisis. Food for thought.
“No donuts for you, sugartits.”
*giggles* Zer tits are made of sugar?
hellkell:
“Little Mediocrity, I don’t have a sister. Got any better insults? Or is that the best your pointy head can come up with?”
Wait, is hellkell trying to cut me down for my poor choice of insults while cribbing from both me and Rutee Katreya (the “pointy head” and “little mediocrity” remarks, respectively) because she doesn’t have a single original thought in her own head?
Or am I reading too deep into this whole shebang?
Help me out here, readers.
I wonder how long until NWO shows up o:
*sits and waits* 😀
Geese: Current state of affairs? Did I ever say anything about the current state of affairs in any of my posts on this thread
Yep… when you (in the very comment you pretend to not be talking about the present state of affairs), say things like, The whole part about the “women and children first” meme just sailed over your pointy little head, didn’t it?
I understand that reading comprehension is something you think difficult, but you might consider at least some attempt at writing comprehension.
Now… are you capable of actually making an argument, or is your repetoire limited to sad attempts at biting wit, like, “sugartits,”, No donuts for you”, and, “Sits back with the popcorn?”
I know where the smart money is going in Vegas on that line.
Is MRAL really going to stick to the draft, despite the fact that it is a complete impossibility barring SCIENCE FICTION that removes nukes? Well, nobody said he was intelligent. Despite his high IQ.
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.
They are completely to blame for an insufficiency of lifeboats.
People here can read?
Rutee Katreya:
“Oh little mediocrity, do you think this will make everyone forget you haven’t actually substantiated your claims?”
Eh? The only claim to my name was the verbal bitch-slapping I laid upon Xtra’s initial piece of mathematical illiteracy. Anything else is likely nothing more than the fevered product of your own hyperactive little imagination.
Little Mediocrity is your new name around here. It fits you better than Geese. Or do you prefer Tiny Halfass?
Nice trying to ding me with insults about originality when yours come from the Mel Gibson traffic stop playbook and whatever MRA cesspool you hail from. Sugartits? How very 2007 of you.
Tiny Halfass, there’s nothing for you here.
If men going to war is a sign that we don’t value men (rather than a sign that we want to send our “best and bravest” and think that means men), then why aren’t women allowed in combat positions? You’d think the guys would be all “I didn’t expect you to volunteer, but our unit is honored to have you” if fighting in wars was all about disposability.
Also, “free for all” is not a good alternative to “women and children first,” because in practice “free for all” favors men and also causes unnecessary casualties all over. It’s not just a choice between sexism or a stampede.
The good alternative is “children and people with mobility impairments first, then an orderly evacuation of adults in random order, crew out last.”
aMiRA:
“People here can read?”
Seems not, from the overall stupidity level of the replies I’ve received. Wot a swizz… 🙁
No wonder men commit suicide so much more often.
Because…? o_O
I CAN READ! 😀
GEE-EE-EEE
um…
that word has too many sill a bowls… 🙁
hellkell:
“Tiny Halfass, there’s nothing for you here.”
‘Cept for heaps upon heaps of teh lulz. Many thanks!
aMIRA, nice to see you!
Because we’d have been conquered long ago, genius.
I’m sure the MRAL Student Thesis of Male Disposability would be chock-full of researchy goodness.
Actually, women try and commit suicide in higher numbers than men. Fewer of them choose particularly violent deaths, and so fewer of them succeed in committing suicide. It’s pretty trivially easy to check, actually. I’m not sure why we pretend hat the problem is anything but patriarchal narratives of violence and ruggedness.
You forgot the reference to his “enormous schlong” … I mean, that’s gotta win the argument, sorta like TAB posting a link to that picture of himself and thereby rendering any and all counter-arguments null and void.
He should have saved “enormous schlong” for later in the game. Oh, well, probably not the first time he’s shot his wad early.