titanic question.........?

Question

I agree that women should go first on the life boats but why, reasons for my paper plz!

women and children

Answer 1

It was the romantic notion of chivalry. That was the obligation of a gentleman to protect women and children ahead of his own life. No one thought it should have been any other way back then. It was part of the obligation of nobility in a time when the perception of civilization was the enoblizing of the world. A holdover in America today, is that men hold doors open for women and that every honorable man is afforded the courtesy of a "mister" or "sir" in public address. To the English, from which such American customs were derived, they had even more specific and rigid meaning.

Answer 2

Well the Titanic sank in 1912, and at that time the role of women in society was quite different than it is today. Men were considered the 'responsible' ones.

The HMS Birkenhead disaster was the first time the term "women and children first was used" as explained in this excerpt from Wikipedia.

"This disaster was the origin of the phrase "Women and Children First!" which became standard procedure in maritime disasters, while the "Birkenhead Drill" carried out by the soldiers became the epitome of courageous behaviour in hopeless circumstances. In fact, that phrase appears in Rudyard Kipling's tribute to the royal marines, "Soldier an' Sailor Too":

To stand and be still
to the Birken’ead Drill
is a damn tough bullet to chew."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845)

And the wikipedia Titanic article discusses the problems with this policy.

"The excessive casualties has also been blamed on the "women and children first" policy for places on the lifeboats. Although the lifeboats had a total capacity of 1,178 - enough for 53% of the 2,224 persons on board - the boats launched only had a capacity of 1,084, and, altogether only 705 people were actually saved - 32% of those originally on board. This is a tragic result when the 1,084-person capacity of the lifeboats actually launched had sufficient room to include all of the 534 women and children on board, plus an additional 550 men (of which there were 1,690 on board). It has been suggested based on these figures that allowing one man on board for each woman or child from the start would not only have increased the number of women and children saved, but also had the added benefit of saving more lives in total. As it was, the many desperate men had to be held off at gunpoint from boarding the lifeboats, adding to the chaos of the scene and there were many more casualties - of women, children and men - than otherwise.[20]"

Here is a very interesting chart which breaks down the Titanic deaths by gender, age, passenger class or crew.

http://www.anesi.com/titanic.htm

"First of all, if you were a man, you were outta luck. The overall survival rate for men was 20%. For women, it was 74%, and for children, 52%. Yes, it was indeed "women and children first."

In the original "Birkenhead" incident, the commanding officer of the soldiers on board ordered his men to stay in their places, even though the ship was sinking because he knew in a panicked rush, the women and children who were weaker would be left behind to die. He was quite a hero.

http://ne.essortment.com/shiptraditionw_rrqb.htm

Interesting question. :)

Answer 3

The idea for woman and children first comes from the sinking of HMS Burkenhead. She was a troop ship carrying solders and their families back from South Africa during the Boer war. She hit rocks in shark infested water and went down.

There was not enough life boats to save all, so the guys stepped aside for their wives and children to be saved.

How this became a general rule I do not know however it does show compassion, it also makes it easy to choose without long moral discussions (not useful when you have only minutes to evacuate the ship)

Answer 4

They can have children, men can't. At the time women were seen as delicate flowers that men had to protect. Women were the ones who raised children.

Answer 5

Men are supposed to protect their wives. Women are child bearers and most likely to "continue the human species" I suppose.

There's two reasons for ya ;)

Answer 6

because women reproduce and men should be brave...and children...i mean come on they're children.

Answer 7

Ladies First! It's just proper I guess...