# Women and children first? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2003, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860 "2003-01-16T00:16:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Woeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Woeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woeg)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/41 "2003-01-17T14:03:11Z")
Skelji, thank you! Blue John, I am starting a new thread about "Chivalry should have ended with the nineteenth century. " I don’t think you understand what chivalry is about, and I don’t want to further hijack this thread. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/42 "2003-01-17T15:25:23Z")
Poor, poor sidle, the poster that started this thread. It got hijacked from the get-go (thanks to the second poster, Caught@Work) and STILL no one has answered his/her question! (A question that I’m curious about too, BTW.) ---
**Author:** ![sidle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee59a6/32.png) [@sidle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidle)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/43 "2003-01-17T21:33:28Z")
:snort: I’m guessing that no one has seen or heard of an actual scenario when men were rescued before women, or they would have offered it. Still, a good discussion, and as a notorious threadkiller who hasn’t started a thread here in 6 months, I’m grateful that at least it actually got some replies! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/44 "2003-01-18T05:41:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Seems like children and women with children first would be a reasonable standard. I hope no one disagrees that seeing to the safety of young children first is the right thing to do, and in that case it seems somehow cruel to me to rescue a little kid while forcing them to leave their mother behind. Just MHO, of course. How about children and their _parents_ first? Is a father less valuable to his children than their mother? > [@](#): > > Would I stop each person to indentify their gender, making the men stand aside and wait while all the women and children climbed out first? No way. It’s chaos. There is no time to stop and sort, you’re simply dealing with people, victims. Period. All I’m going to be concerned with is getting however many people out as possible. In a dire emergency, you can’t start assessing the value of an individual’s life, you just react to the situation. This exact thing was done on the Titanic. Many early boats were sent out with half or more of their seats empty because there weren’t enough women and children available and willing to fill the seats. Men were turned away from empty seats because of Women and children first. One theory that I heard regarding the prioritizing of seats on the Titanic following the release of the movie was that “women and children first” was actually the worst way to prioritize seating if the goal were to save as many lives as possible. The idea was that if you put the able bodied men on first–packing the boat, then put the women and children, who are generally lighter, in their laps and on top of them, the boats could have been overloaded by as much as 50%, thus saving several hundred more people. It’s a theory that makes sense to me. > [@](#): > > If a ferry/boat/ship is going down, and there is time to evacuate said ship in a timely manner, and the passengers of said vessel are all able-bodied, then yes, _willing_ woman and children go first. > > If same vessel is going down, evacuation is possible in a timely manner, but the passengers lists consists of women, children, elderly or invalid, and men, then the children (and mothers with small children) and elderly/invalid would be boarded first, followed by _willing_ able body woman, then able bodied men. > > Next situation, same vessel, same passangers as the first situation, but where time is of the essence (rapidly sinking ship), then I would help all _willing_ woman and children in the immediate area on to the rafts, followed by any _willing_ men who were in the immediate area and wished to board. If possible, I would try to find other survivors before boarding myself. > > In a situation where the ship is going down quickly enough to be an issue of losing a chance of escape for all if action isn’t quick enough, then I would toss everyone I could into the rafts, and jump in one myself if it were clear I could help no one else. > > That’s just the way I am. Again, all that stated, I would _not_ refuse the help of a woman who did not wish to board, but instead wished to help others; indeed, I would be happy to see it, and would respect their decision. Just because I believe in woman and children first doesn’t mean I feel woman can’t help or do the same. Modern sea vessels routinely carry enough life boats for every person on board. Given this, I think the best course of action would be to fill the boats as quickly as they can be filled safely, giving priority to people who need assistance, children and their caregivers if necessary, but in general putting people in the boats on a first come first seat basis. If there is no rush, it won’t matter when any individual gets on a boat, as everyone who’s willing is going to get a seat anyway–prioritizing won’t save any more lives than first come, first serve. If you are going to prioritize, it should be to keep families together–including able bodied men with their wives. If there is a limited amount of time, or not enough time to get everyone off, the most lives would be saved by getting every person into a life boat as quickly as possible. In such a situation, prioritizing by gender and age is likely to cost lives by slowing the loading process. > [@](#): > > Is this gereral idea linked to the idea of no women in combat? > > Generally societies keep women from war. Of course there are exceptions and when war comes to a particular town everybody tends to join in the fight. (women and children) I think men fighting wars generally comes from biological differences that gave men a tremendous advantage in combat until relatively recent technological advances. Men were bigger, stronger, and faster, able to carry heavier armor and swords, shoot arrows farther and more accurately, etc. Men tend to be more naturally aggressive than women (the fight or flight reflex is stronger), so they’ve tended to be more willing to fight than women. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/45 "2003-01-18T15:46:29Z")
I’m transfering this thread to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/46 "2003-01-18T17:14:21Z")
I don’t believe that the tradition of ‘women and children first’ is very old. Apparently, it started with HMS Birkenhead [http://news.mod.uk/news/press/news\_headline\_story.asp?newsItem\_id=1495](http://news.mod.uk/news/press/news_headline_story.asp?newsItem_id=1495) and became known as the Birkenhead Drill. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/47 "2003-01-18T20:22:02Z")
“Women and children first” as a general rule is sexism, plain and simple. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_of\_Graymatter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/74df32/32.png) [@Baron\_of\_Graymatter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_of_Graymatter)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/48 "2003-01-24T17:47:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by skaterboarder87 \* > \*\*I agree with the “Children first” portion, but the woman before men aspect is bullshit. Since when were women more worthy of living than a man? Both sexes have an equal right to live; anyone who says otherwise is blatantly sexist. \*\* OK, I’m blatantly sexist… ---
**Author:** ![TeleTronOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4af34b/32.png) [@TeleTronOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeleTronOne)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/49 "2003-01-24T18:05:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by XJETGIRLX \* > \*\*I think also it may have something to do with the way men and women are hard-wired. If the situation is dire, but possibly fixable, for the most part it will be the men that will know how to fix it (i.e. mechanical failure, etc.) and may need to get the women and children out of the way to perform the task. Also, men have a higher threshold for taking risks, so may be more likely to stay in a dangerous situation. > > Not to discount social expectations and ingrained behaviors, but men and women are biologically wired to react differently in dangerous situations, and that may have something to do with it. \*\* I think in this situation you’d have a lot of lifeboats full of women and children quietly floating off to safety, while a dozen or so guys stand around the engine room with water rushing up past their knees, belching and going ‘Yep… looks broken… let’s kick it.’ ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/50 "2003-01-24T19:26:24Z")
I think the idea started not as a gender dividing issue, but that of helping the less able-bodied as they would otherwise not be able to rescue themselves. Thus, children naturally would be rescued first, and elderly or disabled. Up until very recently, women were considered less able-bodied (and in full dress attire, probably were), and needed help if they were to be rescued. The idea being, the men were more likely to be able to save themselves, but women and children could not. The reasonable thing to do then, would be to rescue women and children first. Also, until recently women were almost exclusively the primary cargivers for their children, so it would make sense for the children to stay with their mothers. Whether or not this rule should still apply is debatable, depending on the situation. I don’t look at it as a comparison of whose life is more valuable. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/51 "2003-01-24T19:29:07Z")
I meant caregivers, not cargivers. I wish my mother was my primary cargiver, though. ---
**Author:** ![X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbe5ce/32.png) [@X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X_Slayer_ALE)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860/52 "2003-01-24T19:51:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jonathan Chance \* > \*\*I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘women are less capable’ so much as ‘women are more _valuable_’. In a survival situation I think it makes perfect sense to give priority to those who can perpetuate the species. \*\* I agree with the women being more valueable but the rest …I dunno… We are talking about surviving a localized catastrophe here not the end of the world. I dont think the species was in danger when the Titanic hit that iceberg. If what youre saying holds true, then in a hostage crisis, married men with children have the lowest priority because they have already perpuated the species and the singles are still at it…theoretically. First of all, I think everyone on this thread agrees, that children should be rescued first. No question. Anyone who does gets shot! (just j/k) Second, the best people to take care of children are women. They are capable, nurturing, have great communication skills and under a crisis can show excellent survival skills even if it is just to run away. Men have this silly fight mode that tends to run counter to surviving. Of course some men do have to go with the women to either make the women and childrens chances of survival better or to get rid of the wussies from the men being left behind. If I chose to die for my women and children Id rather not do it next to a whiner …thats my job. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-children-first/148860.md?page=2)