The Titanic sank 100 years ago today, and Men’s Rights Activists are still pissed off about it.
They’re not really pissed off that it sank. They’re pissed off that the men on board were more likely to go down with the ship than the women. You know, that whole “women and children first” thing.
Some MRAs were so pissed off about this that they were planning to march on Washington on this very day in an attempt, as they put it, to “Sink Misandry.”
You don’t know how much I would have loved to see this, a dozen angry dudes marching in circles on the National Mall carrying signs protesting the sinking of the Titanic and demanding that in all future sinkings of the Titanic that women and men be equally likely to drown in the cold waters of the North Atlantic. For that would be justice at last!
But, alas, due to unspecified logistical problems this march was cancelled some months back, and so misandry remains unsunk.
Or does it?
For you see, it turns out that the whole “women and children first” thing was not really a thing. Oh, on The Titanic it was. But women unfortunate enough to be passengers on sinking ships that weren’t the Titanic (or the HMS Birkenhead, which sunk off the coast of South Africa in 1852) weren’t able to push ahead to the front of the line. That, at least, is the conclusion of a new Swedish study (link is to a pdf of it).
The chivalrous code “women and children first” appears to have sunk with the Titanic 100 years ago.
Long believed to be the golden standard of conduct in a shipwreck, the noble edict is in fact “a myth that has been nourished by the Titanic disaster,” economist Mikael Elinder of Uppsala University, Sweden, told Discovery News.
Elinder and colleague Oscar Erixson analyzed a database of 18 peace-time shipwrecks over the period 1852–2011 in a new study into survival advantages at sea disasters.
Looking at the fate of over 15,000 people of more than 30 nationalities, the researchers found that more women and children die than men in maritime disasters, while captains and crew have a greater chance of survival than any passengers.
Being a woman was an advantage on only two ships: on the Birkenhead in 1852 and on the Titanic in 1912.
The notion of “women and children first” may have captured the popular imagination, but it’s never been an official policy for ship evacuations. It wouldn’t be fair, nor would it be an efficient way to get as many people as possible to safety.
Nor was “women and children” strictly enforced even on the Titanic. True, my great-grandfather, the mystery writer Jacques Futrelle, was one of those who went down with the ship, while his wife and my great-grandmother, writer Lily May Futrelle made it off safely (in the last lifeboat). But there were many men who survived, and many women who died.
If you want to get mad about the sinking of the Titanic all those years ago, get mad at the White Star Line for not bothering to equip the ship with lifeboats enough for everyone on it. Blame the captain, for ordering the ship to continue plowing ahead on a dark, foggy night into an area of the Atlantic where numerous icebergs had just been sighted by a number of other ships. Blame the crew for botching the evacuation – for the strange lack of urgency after the ship hit the iceberg, for the lifeboats leaving the sinking ship with half as many passengers as they could fit.
Much like the iceberg that sank the Titanic, Elinder and Erixson’s research has poked a giant hole in the “women and children first” myth. Of course, MRAs aren’t interested in historical accuracy. They’re looking for excuses to demonize women and feminists. So I imagine we’ll be hearing about the Titanic from them for years to come.
Here’s another tragic sinking, of yet another ship without a sufficient number of lifeboats:
EDIT: I added a couple of relevant links and fixed a somewhat egregious typo.
Not sure. It could be another rage filled for no reason, privilege-blind asshole, there’s enough of them in the manosphere. But his socks never stray too far from his pet peeves, and male disposability is a biggie.
Oh, and what’s even funnier about PASTA!’s ranting is that Haiti is the only time that MRAs give a flying fuck about men of color. If black men here were lining up for food, I’m sure they’d have other not-so-nice ideas about how to handle it.
Fuck the hell off, or learn Polish (while not living in Poland) and then I will watch how awesome you are at expressing yourself.
So you say, but I am not convinced.
Oooooh, the rage is strong in this one. Can we poke him till he bursts? Shouldn’t take long.
Okay… so you’re not convinced.
That’s a shame and all. Oh well. Not my job to convince you of every fact you randomly choose not to believe.
Basta, you didn’t answer my fucking question. Does “the UN is doing its best to help everyone” or the “the UN is fucking over men because the UN hates men” more plausible, given the evidence?
I still think Basta is Buttman, but it’s only a hunch.
Basta, I was not erasing able bodied, adult men. The thieves weren’t pushing them and stealing their food, so that’s why I didn’t mention them. The bullies instead targeted women, children, the disabled, and the elderly because they viewed them as weaker targets. First, you said that women goaded the bullies into stealing the food, now you’re saying the bullies were targeting able bodied adult men. Your basic argument is that if aid distribution programs set up special lines for marginalized groups, that they are doing it to harm men. Your arguments are all over the place.
Are you arguing because you want to help male victims of disasters, or because you want to use them as a beatstick against feminists? I appreciate all of the people and corporations that provided clothes, food, and school supplies for my husband and sons. Those generous people really did help male vicitms of a disaster. Male victims do not benefit from MRA’s trolling feminist blogs, though.
This is a typical slanderous half-truth. The full truth is that MRAs don’t give a fuck about color as a variable because they are constantly aware of the simple statistical fact that being male is a far stronger predictor of misery than any other birth group affiliation.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA, tell me another, please. And throw in a citation or two while you’re doing it.
Like… stronger than being born without limbs?
This whole “men suffer not just oppression, but the worst oppression” thing is kind of familiar I gotta say. But far be it from me to assume there’s only one idiot in the world…
So BASTA! is that why they’re so incredibly racist? Because they don’t care about color?
Oh fuck off you lying, disingenuous scumbag. There are numerous instances out there in your beloved manosphere where MRAs say blatantly racist shit.
Out of all the disgusting and reprehensible shit you guys say, crying about Haitai is one of the worst.
Hm. Well, I do believe that you are miserable, Basta, because misery and anger seem to ooze from your every comment. I do not think the cause is what you think it is.
I just want to point out — since I grew up in a country where it was mostly women who stood in lines — just because you see a woman standing in line to get food doesn’t mean she’s the one who gets to eat all of it, or most of it, or any of it. In some cultures, standing in line for food is simply women’s job.
Intersectionality, motherfuckers, have you heard of it?
Being a black man is clearly and objectively far worse than being a white man. Black men, on average, make less money than white women do and almost three-quarters as much as white men. Men of color are far more likely to be imprisoned, homeless, or victims of violent crime. They are the primary victims of the prison-industrial complex and the drug war.
@ozymandias42: The answer is, the UN is doing its best to help everyone when that is attainable, and when not, it’s “to women according to their needs, man is the smith of his own fortune”.
Yeah, you can go ahead and fuck right the hell off.
Okay, so, what evidence do you have that this is actually the case, as opposed to the UN actually doing what they’re saying they’re doing? Occam’s Razor suggests the latter is true.
Life expectancy and suicide rate. Data are everywhere.
Or, put more clearly: among the many, many people whose struggles you’re erasing are many, many men.
And what is the cause, pray tell? [waits expectantly]
Sorry, my little rage filled crumpet, I’m not the google bitch here, as I am not advancing the claim. Nice try though.
@ozumandias42: the evidence is the rhetoric of female moral superiority that they use to justify policies such as that which we are discussing. Earlier in the discussion some academic papers were linked providing different, much more rational (if sometimes ill-founded) arguments in favor of such policies, but these are not the arguments that the UN uses. Instead, they just say that women are the loving, caring, sharing variety of humans, therefore they will do better job at distributing the supplies equitably. That’s what they say, but the underlying sentiment may well be even worse: women are the loving, caring, sharing variety of humans, therefore they deserve stuff, period.
@Hellkell: be a common knowledge bitch then.
So where are these arguments that the UN uses, PASTA?