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.
Althought I am sure that is not what you mean.
@Vitamin D
David might as well expose the bullshit with an article. Just a suggestion because refuting misogynistic garbage on YouTube is very tiresome.
Thank you David for posting this. This paper restores dignity to our ancestors, who were not, after all, the vagina-worshipping supplicants that the Titanic model always seemed to suggest they were. This paper serves to sequester the idiocy that is modern feminism to a unique point in time. It is our own unique embarassment, and not to be shared with our ancestors. We and we alone need to take ownership of the feminist embarassment.
This paper also helps to confirm my own theory that feminism is primarily a product of the sexual revolution and the contraceptive technologies that evolved with it. When you tamper with biology at a culture-wide level, the end result is the disaster into which we are careering headlong (I think there is a cliche in here somewhere that David might like to add to his cliche list).
Whilst it is true that feminism is a natural extension of western chivalry, I think that the chivalry-on-steroids that we have today represents a unique pathology, unlike anything that has gone before (another cliche alert!). Thankfully this study serves to confirm this.
In restoring dignity to our ancestors, there might be some justification for rolling back feminidiocy to a not-so-distant era instead of having to reinvent everything anew. I’m not so sure I want to roll back to anything representative of western culture, but hey… I suppose anything is better than what we have now.
This study also raises an interesting question that might be worthy of further analysis. Are WCF commands unique to the Anglosphere? Euro-continental and Asian men and women have always been more inclined to respect one another as equals, without the need for special entitlements, than those of the Anglosphere.
The posts in that bodybuilding forum are absolutely disgusting. They’re terrified of women, aren’t they?
In a response to a guy holding a sign saying “I need feminism because I don’t want to be manly”:
“What’s wrong with being manly?”
Way to miss the fucking point so badly it hurts. The point is that “manly” is a gender role that not all men want to have to live up to. Being manly isn’t bad, but forcing all male bodies to live up to it is.
Why is it so unsurprising that a “bodybuilding” forum wouldn’t understand this… -_-
AntZ
“Sweden is a hot bed of feminist man-hate and misandry”
In your mind, what is the difference between “feminist man-hate” and “misandry”?
How’s the war going? Any casualty figures for this week?
You announced that the MRM has won, citing an English newspaper’s upvoting stats. Given the SPLC announcement concerning the MRM, Tom Martin’s failure and the “Sink Misandry” humiliation, do you still claim that the MRM has won? And won what, against whom?
That’s my question too. “Has won?” Won on earth what? …
Those posts on the bodybuilding forum are vile. They’re all “Hur dur, let’s go a trollin!” And then they whine like babies when they get banhammered and can’t spew their stupid shit.
There are female body builders out there. I wonder if these assholes have managed to run them all off the site.
The trolls have actually calmed down on the fb page itself. That’s a relief, anyway.
Nope it appears feminism is winning and here is the latest plan , even rivals radfemhub
http://thefemitheist.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/allow-me-to-introduce-myself.html
http://thefemitheist.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/lie-of-patriarchy-final-eutopia.html
I try to limit my Internet usage to a few sites. I could spend a lifetime reading horrible shit on the Internet and fuming with rage.
I’d assume that’s because they’ve either found other venues for their impotent rage or that the mods on the page were too quick at playing whack-a-troll for them to stir up the drama shitstorms trolls feed on.
One of the reasons more women were in the lifeboats than men is that people were actually unaware of the effect of cold water. Many men “gave up” their seats because they thought they wouldn’t need them. If they could keep themselves afloat everything would be alright. I hated that movie but the “rescuing scene” captures this quite well: When the boats come back, people have frozen to death. “Jack” didn’t drown, he froze solid.
It was one of the cruel “medical” experiments the Nazis did on concentration camp prisoners: Put them in cold water and see how long they survive in order to get data for their own pilots and shipmen.
There are female body builders out there. I wonder if these assholes have managed to run them all off the site.
I recently read a “crossfit” Facebook page where hundreds of males abused an attractive, very fit “cross fit” female who posted videos of herself impressively working out with heavy weights as a SLUT because she worked out wearing a tank top… She may have breast implants, but that makes her a SLUT right?
I don’t think they actually froze solid. I think they died of hypothemia and drowning brought on by hypothermia (it causes delayed reactions and unconciousness, which is not a good thing in water.) The water temperature was around freezing, and at that temp people can die in as little as 15 minutes. You lose body heat 26 times faster in water.
In terms of the movie, Rose only survived because she was out of the water. She went unconcious temporarily but was prevented from drowning.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)12423-3/fulltext
Haha, I called it. Women got the right to vote in the US in 1920, which is 92 years ago. The
only time you’re likely to hear feminists talk about suffrage is when some MRA claims that women have never been oppressed. The fact that women did not get suffrage until 1920 is a good fact to prove that women have been oppressed. I don’t see feminists talking about how they are hurt today by it, or blaming modern men for women not having the right to vote. I do see MRA’s whine about the Titanic all the freaking time, though. Why do so many MRA’s blame today’s feminists for the Titanic disaster? I’ve never worked for White Star Lines, so it has nothing to do with me.
It’s good that hospitals have plans for these kinds of disasters. Last year the employees of St. John’s Hospital did an amazing job helping patients survive and then evacuate when the tornado hit. One sad thing is that everyone on a ventilator died when the power first went out, and then the back up generator got destroyed. That was beyond anyone’s control, though. Helpful people drove pickups to the hospital to help transport patients that couldn’t walk on their own.
After everyone moved to the other hospital, Freeman West, the doctors and nurses had to set up a triage situation. Even with triage, there were too many patients needing critical care and not enough people to give it or to transport them to other hospitals. My friend is a nurse, and she said they just gave people heavy drugs to calm them while they waited for doctors to come from other towns to help. An elderly woman across the street from me lost her finger, but nobody could sew it back on for her in time. She didn’t mind, though, and wanted to doctors to focus on saving lives first. I believe that’s how most people are in these situations. Most people would feel guilty to be helped at the expense of someone who needs the help more than they do.
The Titanic museum in Branson, MO has a tank of icy water with a timer by it. People can dip their hands in the water and see how long they can keep it there. I made it about 30 seconds. It was very painful. It really shows how bad things were for the poor people who were submerged in that water. My kids splashed the water the last time we visited. lol
If someone visits Branson right now, they can get tickets to the museum and watch Titanic at the Imax theater for a discount. It’s a big thing there because of the 100 year anniversary. The Vision Forum groups went there to celebrate chivalry this past weekend, even though there was some bad weather. I didn’t go to the 100 year celebration, because I don’t like big crowds and I don’t like travelling during storms.
I have done the hands in ice water (as in the water was mostly ice) for about a minute. I won that contest though dang it! *is typing with her nose*
Hee. I’ve spent quite some time with my hand in ice water, because cooking school required us to test sugar solutions with our hands.
I found a video that shows the Titanic Museum at Branson, MO. I have no idea if the employee’s British accent is real or not. I’m guessing it’s not, but I’m not a good judge of that.
At the museum’s entrance, they give you a ticket with a real passenger’s name on it. At the end of the museum, you can look at a chart and find out if your passenger survived or not. If you bring kids, the crew members flip through the cards and make sure the child gets the name of a survivor. If you get an adult name, though, it’s more likely the name is of someone who perished.
It’s as if none of the people who hate Sweden for being entirely populated by rabid pinko feminists with hairy armpits are aware that Sweden’s current overlords are neoliberal/conservative. (Then again, I suppose most of these people would think anything less than Gor was too woman-friendly.)
I think I’m going to need a traslator. What does Gor and cis mean?
Cis means one presents with the same gender one is.
Gor is… Gor And wow, or WHOA!… John Norman has a “statement”.
He pretends (I hope it’s pretend), that he’s actually speaking a truth about human nature in his books.
I’ve never read any of those books and thought that Gor was some sort of video game. So someone like Chaz Bono would not be cis because she presents herself as a man but has female sexual organs?
The opposite of cis is trans, so yes, a trans man like Chaz Bono is not cis. However…
“He presents himself”, Bunny. A trans man is a man. Sexual organs are not exceptionally relevant to gender identity or gender presentation: unless you’re a medical professional, exactly how many sets do you see in a day?