When they make the movie about the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that grounded off the coast of Tuscany, there won’t be romantic tales about its captain. Italian authorities immediately arrested him on suspicions of manslaughter and abandoning ship prematurely. He might have been the skipper of the ill-fated vessel in all senses of the word.
A century ago this spring, as the Titanic entered its death throes and all its lifeboats had been launched, Capt. Edward Smith told his crew: “Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Now it’s every man for himself.” One witness recalled seeing him, probably washed overboard, clutching a child in the water as the Titanic disappeared. A member of the crew always believed it was Captain Smith’s voice he heard from the water after the Titanic was gone, urging him and others on: “Good boys! Good lads!”
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“Every man for himself” is a phrase associated with the deadly Costa Concordia disaster, but not as a last-minute expedient. It appears to have been the natural order of things. In the words of one newspaper account, “An Australian mother and her young daughter have described being pushed aside by hysterical men as they tried to board lifeboats.” If the men of the Titanic had lived to read such a thing, they would have recoiled in shame. The Titanic’s crew surely would have thought the hysterics deserved to be shot on sight — and would have volunteered to perform the service.
Women and children were given priority in theory, but not necessarily in practice. The Australian mother said of the scene, “We just couldn’t believe it — especially the men, they were worse than the women.” Another woman passenger agreed, “There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats.” Yet another, a grandmother, complained, “I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls.”
Guys aboard the Costa Concordia apparently made sure the age of chivalry was good and dead by pushing it over and trampling on it in their heedless rush for the exits. The grounded cruise ship has its heroes, of course, just as the Titanic had its cowards. But the discipline of the Titanic’s crew and the self-enforced chivalric ethic that prevailed among its men largely trumped the natural urge toward panicked self-preservation.
Women and children went first, and once the urgency of the situation became clear, breaches weren’t tolerated. The crew fired warning shots to keep men from rushing the lifeboats. In an instance Daniel Allen Butler recounts in his book, “Unsinkable,” a male passenger trying to make it on one lifeboat was rebuffed and then beaten for his offense.
The survivor statistics tell the tale. More women from third class — deep in the bowels of the ship, where it was hard to escape and instructions were vague or nonexistent — survived than men from first class. Almost all of the women from first class (97 percent) and second class (84 percent) made it. As Butler notes, the men from first class who were lost stayed behind voluntarily, true to their Edwardian ideals.
They can look faintly ridiculous from our vantage point. Benjamin Guggenheim changed into his evening clothes that night: “We’ve dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.” Whom would you rather have around your wife or daughter, though, when there is only one slot left on the lifeboat? Old Guggenheim in his white tie and tails, or the contemporary slob in his Bermuda shorts and flip-flops?
The Titanic went down, they say, to the strains of the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as the band courageously played on. It lent a final grace note to the tragedy. Today, we don’t do grace notes. We’ve gone from “Women and children, first,” to “Dude, where’s my lifeboat?” As the women of the Costa Concordia can testify, that’s a long way down.
This is the logical end result of feminism. If there are no gender differences, then any order but survival of the fittest is illogical and counter-productive to society. I wonder how many proponents of feminism will make the connection.
This is Clark McAdams, columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, writing shortly after the sinking of Titanic:
“Votes for women!”
Was the cry,
Reaching upward to the Sky.
Crashing glass
And flashing eye-
“Votes for Women!”
Was the cry.
“Boats for women!”
Was the Cry.
When the brave
Were come to die.
When the end
Was drawing nigh-
“Boats for women!”
Was the cry.
It's not the world's finest poetry. But, the same issue was raised in ... 1912.
Certainly, if every one is treated as though they were exactly equal, there is no reason the strong should not push the weak and vunerable aside. Luckily, most people do not really believe this. Consider how the jury in the trial of this captain will react when they hear *this* bit of evidence....
*Frenchwoman Isabelle Mougin, 38, who is five months pregnant, wept as she described her battle to get off the sinking ship with her husband. Interviewed in hospital, she said the captain refused to let them leave the vessel, even though she pleaded that she was a priority case because of her pregnancy.
"We were stuck. He told us we couldn’t get off. I thought my baby was going to die – I thought we were all going to die. The captain just went, he just left the boat, left us there, I just cannot believe it."
I do not think they will applaud his gender-neutral policy...
This was not the sinking of the Titanic. This was a grounding in calm shallow warm waters near the coast. Perhaps a pregnant woman had to wait a little while to continue her vacation, but it is not the end of the world, or chivalry.
I understand your disappointment in your fellow men, but maybe you should cut them a little break. Since the Titanic went down they've seen women demand entry schools, jobs, the military, etc., that were traditionally male-only, and screech for equal, if not preferential treatment. Gender lines being so blurry, maybe men figure that we women should have equal access to the life boats too. Oh yeah, we've come a long way, baby.
I understand your disappointment in your fellow men, but maybe you should cut them a little break. Since the Titanic went down they've seen women demand entry schools, jobs, the military, etc., that were traditionally male-only, and screech for equal, if not preferential treatment. Gender lines being so blurry, maybe men figure that we women should have equal access to the life boats too. Oh yeah, we've come a long way, baby.
Is anyone really surprised at the fact that men were pushing women and children aside to save themselves? Ladies, this is the consequence of decades of reengineering society to declare that women and men are interchangeable with no real differences. Expect to see more of this. These of the fruits of the feminist revolution.
There are consequences for everything that we do as a society. Unfortunately, you must accept the negatives along with those things you believe you have gained. Is it an admireable trait from a man's perspective? No! I think we have lost far more that is valuable than the politican objectives that women sought. We have opened Pandora's Box and what we are seeing is frightening but inevitable.
I hear the behavior of these men excused by feminism and now abortion. I guess we know not to get in your way as you shove the smaller and weaker out of your way to the life boat.
Might I kindly suggest that you consider at great length the possiblities -- merely the possibilities -- as to the consequences of those politically incorrect ideas for which you insult the writers above. Your approach is so,,, liberal.
Although it is tempting to agree with you that a liberal's life is worth less than a life of a rational person I will not rise to that bait.
Rather, I ask you . What order of loading in to the lifeboats do you propose in this day of demanded gender equality that would be consistent with that new goal? And how would that proposed loading order be decided & by whom?
I know women and children that are perfectly capable of defending themselves and surviving.
If you are not one of these or at the very least willing to accept responsibility for not having done anything towards developing your own capability to survive then perhaps you will get what you deserve.
I remember 20 years ago having a friend tell me of how he was shouted at by a woman for whom he'd held open a door as they were both entering a university building. How dare you? she had evidently asked him, suggesting that the courtesty was a judgement on her ability to open the door herself.
Once we set up a societal standard where holding open a door (for any reason, even if it is just to let the next person through or because their hands are full) is seen as giving intentional insult or unthinking slight, then by what standard do we expect a man to give way when life may be on the line?
I have three sons and I try to teach them the courtesies of a gentleman. But I know they may well face the ire of that university student angrily shaking a manicured finger in their face as reward for their efforts.
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