How much influence does the "women and children first" philosophy have on attitudes and behaviours?

Question

Phrases such as "women and children first" imply that the lives of all children and one gender are more important than the lives of all men.
Responders in GWS will often write about things like having to work to support women and children, and having to go to war for women and children. When they are discussing male "superiority," or what it is "men do", versus what it is that "women do," these two things are often mentioned. As a culture, or generally speaking, does western society still believe "women and children first?" If so, how is it shown? If not, why not?

Hey...MISOA....that doesn't answer the question. I know you can do better than that.

Kendrick: I said nothing about superiority or victimization.

Answer 1

Certainly, children no longer come first in ANY matter. I am a child advocate and I am profoundly weary of seeing children suffer. I do not care for humanity much anymore because any species as stupid as ours is in how poorly it cares for its children and how readily it harms its children has no honor whatsoever in my eyes. But, I can contribute this to your excellent question: The origins of the concept "women and children first", hails from early man when humans were the property of dominate males and ruling families. If I may, here is an answer I posted earlier related to monogamy and the mindset of human cultures and modern customs that hail from early conditions of human husbandry:


"We are probably not monogamous. Other male primates tend to have several female mates while females tend to remain aligned with one dominate male. Most early civilizations of humans continued that practice. When we began to domesticate animals, we learned about animal husbandry, how to tame wild animals, care for them, and how to breed them. Although we did not know about genetics, of course, we understood "bloodlines" and bred animals for certain traits.

During that time, we also observed that animals got sick and were born defective if bred with close bloodline relatives. By breeding animals with only distant bloodlines, the defects and sicknesses were avoided. Back then, people understood instinctively that they, too, were of "flesh and blood" like other animals, not separate beings, like religions portrayed us. They began to avoid breeding with close relatives in order to avoid the same kinds of defects and sicknesses. Meticulous records began related to parental bloodlines, hence, the first kind of birth certificates.

People in a clan or tribe were, for the most part, the property of the dominate male and his family. Marriage came into being as a form of "pedigree", a system of careful monitoring of mixing bloodlines for certain traits, such as what occured to many Black slaves in the South before the Civil war. They were bred like cattle or horses to be stronger or faster or whatever their "owner" desired. As portrayed in the movie "Conan" with young Arnold Schwarzenegger, prized slaves were bred with as many females as possible to produce a stronger herd. Marriage was still not monogamous, just monitored bloodline stuff. It was merely for the legitimization of offspring. Those who were "off records", were potential genetic dangers, hence, most civilizations' have negative concepts related to children born out of wedlock, the "bast*rds".

Then, early civilizations began to learn about infectious diseases, that some illnesses could be passed from person to person sexually. That's when our "owners", our "lords" and such began to require monogomous marriages to prevent the spread of disease among their human livestock. Early organized religion, working in the service of the rulers, formalized the arrangement."



"Women and children first" principles hail from those early civilizations in which the female "livestock" were more valuable due to their fundamental reproductive function of bearing more human livestock or members of a tribe to keep it stronger than raiding tribes, whereas, males were of less value because not nearly as many of them were required for reproductive functions. Only the fittest of them were worth feeding and housing in suitable, more comfortable "family" arrangements outside of separate, harsher existences as hunters and warriors.

Until modern times, if not the females, our children were held to be our greatest asset and they, above all others, were protected. Young women were also protected and included with children in those triaging moments of survival because women nursed their young up until four years old back then and children could not survive without that milk.

Answer 2

It had to do with the survival of the human species. Nothing to do with male "superiority"... that's just the feminist 'we are victims' mentality you're using.

First, to understand this, you must understand how much population we have now compared to prior history.

Basically, each woman can only have a child once every 9 months(10 months) or so. But men can have more children. So, in the past, if an entire group of men were to be demolished in a colony, a few men that were left could impregnate the women and the area would survive. If all the women died except few, we would be sitting around waiting every 10 months, while the women would get exhausted continuously making babies. And there would be an abundance of non-baby-producing men.

With all this considered, the women would need to be spared to keep the local populations going, in order to survive.

Answer 3

"Women and children first" is now today considered as merely a "turn of phrase".
Society today recognises that as women are equal sharers in the workplace they have equal rights to men. Well it should be so but we all know it not to be but that is not the question you are asking.
Historically "women and children first" materialised during the first world war in 1914.
To preserve the population and to ensure that the human race would continue it was deemed by governments that women and children were paramount in achieving this.
Hence in any difficult situation where the lives of women and children were threatened the call went up for women and children to go first.
Hence The Titanic- not enough lifeboats for all, so women and children went first as women can reproduce and bear children, men cannot.
Preserve the existing children, so you don't wipe out a generation and leave the women free to reproduce.

Answer 4

"All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly — and no doubt will keep on trying. "

Answer 5

"As a culture, or generally speaking, does western society still believe "women and children first?"

Never mind 'still believe' - it never was so in the first place. Quite the reverse.

Examples:
1. 'spare the rod and spoil the child'
2. beating the wife was perfectly ok as long as the weapon (in this case a stick) remained under a certain thickness

Aside from what I have seen depicted in Hollywood movies (a fantasy world) I have never encountered any real-life examples of "women and children first." History tells us the REVERSE was true. Not just scholarly history books, but modern day reality - all over the globe it's women and children LAST. I have noooooo idea where this inane myth originated, or how.

Answer 6

Back in the day when this was the general rule it was more to do with reproduction, not so much one gender is more important than the other.

Lets say there was a natural disaster and alot of people were gonna die. There is no point saving say 10000 men and 1000 women and 500 kids. It makes alot more sense to save more woman than men because lets face it 1 man can create hundreds of kids a year if they had to repopulate. To this he would need hundreds of women. If it was the other way around only 1 child would be born in the year. It makes sense to me to dave more women for this reason.

Now a days woman work to support themselves and most family homes are double income.

Answer 7

In an interesting study of global mining disasters and work accidents, it has been discovered that "women first," is so ingrained that you will likely never hear of a female mine death.

It seems that women suffer injury and death rates so statistically below men that they are nearly as safe as being above ground. There are quite a few cases of men dying so that female coworkers would have time to escape.

It is important to remember, biologically, women are more valuable than men. If a young woman dies, her reproductive capacity dies. If a grandmother dies, that also places young females at risk. They are at least, less productive. You could repopulate the species with ten women and one guy. You cannot do that with ten guys and one woman.

There was an interesting book written by a former director of the National Organization of Women. He discovered that when behavior was controlled for, women made more money than men. Men are paid for different behaviors. Primarily these behaviors are driven to provide or protect women. Women, as a group, seem to enter into lower productivity roles that keep them free for child care. We also seem to grant women greater flexibility than men due to a tendency to accept that role for women and not for men.

It seems, from the empirical data, men will sacrifice their well being for women and children. Women seem to sacrifice formal power in exchange for power within the household and freedom to do what is needed for children.

Just a note, when behavior is controlled for, it appears women may in fact make slightly more than men for the same work. This is due to the fact that "genetically well endowed" young women seem to make statistically higher pay than anyone else for the same job. Further, regardless of what they look like later, this pay differential lasts for life. Young very sexy women get bonus pay. Young handsome men do not.

Further, in 98 professions women earn more than men. Female software engineers make 40% more than their male counterparts. Having done a lot of management field research in software engineering and having taught young engineers, I can tell you why. The difference in behavior is very valuable to the customers and although I seem to be able to get this message across to older male engineers, I cannot seem to get this across to students.

Female students must learn male behaviors to survive undergraduate programs, males do not try to learn female behaviors.

Answer 8

Well its usually that , Men were made stronger and braver. You obviously know children arnt like that and women are more sensitive and gental . So Women and children first could mean that men help them out and then go after.
So i beleive that men should be proud of going last :P
just my opinion

Answer 9

I laugh until my head comes off...

Answer 10

Hah and then we talk about equality!!!