I've just been reading a study by Wayne Hall of UWA, entitled Social Class and Survival on the SS Titanic.

http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv/UQ:152940/HallSSM2261986.pdf

Among 1st class passengers only about 3% of women/children were killed and 67% of the men, while among 3rd class passengers 57.8% of women and children died along with about 84% of the men. 2nd class passengers fell between the other 2 and crew rates were approximately equivalent to second class passengers.

This seems to me to highlight the problem with our modern obsession with gender parity.

In first class the men knew the welfare of their wives and children was their obligation and a very high-level one. Their wives had a concomitant obligation to their husbands, albeit in a much more limited sense.

In second class, or the sort of ticket that mostly middle-class people could afford, the men had a similar sense of obligation, largely based on their aspirations to be just like the upper class. however, they also knew that their wives were strong, capable people who worked hard at their own jobs. If anyone has ever done laundry in a copper they'd understand what I mean.

In third class, both men and women routinely worked at the most arduous of jobs. Women were often pregnant almost constantly and they had to work hard to keep a home going. Further, the culture of working people made little distinction between men and women, other than as to the sort of work they did. Nonetheless, nearly half the 3rd class women and children survived and only about an eighth of the men.

It seems to me that if the Titanic happened today, the result would be even worse for women than the third-class one.

So, here's the question: would you, as a man, make a decision to give up your seat in the lifeboat to a woman? Would you, as a woman, take it? On what grounds?

Brilliant thread, Anti.
Although it's quite early in the West - and not all of my brain cells are yet engaged...

My first question is exactly what work do you think the women did who were 2nd class passengers? I posit that they were middle-class with aspirations to be upper-middle. Did all the women on the Titanic have an equal access to a lifeboat place - was it more difficult for women the lower their perceived status? Was the upper class better informed as the crisis developed over a number of hours? I posit that there was a lot more confusion and ignorance of the actuality of the crisis in steerage than there was in first class (or the second class areas) areas of the ship,

As to the men in first class choosing the chivalrous option, it's not surprising at all. This was the old warrior class - the class of knights, etc. It's for the same reason that around a third of the British upper class officers/soldiers were killed in the Great War.
(The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy is a good read)
I think the lower orders acted in a chivalrous manner also if they had the opportunity.

One has to remember that this ship was "unsinkable" and that the unfolding of its fate and the eventual realisation of its doom wasn't initially apparent.....people in steerage may have been the last to know and the least likely to be afforded a scarce lifeboat place.

Anti,

Just given it a little more thought - and the survival probabilities for women did appear to depend on what class one happened to be. I'm also curious about the psychological aspect of this type of disaster in the period it occurred.

Women at the time were driven forward in a world materially defined by the exploits of men. The whole "Titanic" roadshow (oecanshow?) was constructed by men and operated by them. The fact that it went so terribly wrong was a responsibility that those upper-class men would have borne implicitly. That class had choice - the women and children were to be salvaged "without question"...but, as I mentioned earlier, honour and chivalry were paramount. The upper-class men dismissed any chance of their own survival otherwise they would have taken up the lifeboat places of the lower classes as well.

I posit that if the same thing happened today, men would still put women and children first for rescue.

Poirot, in those days just running a home was arduous. Laundry, cleaning of all types, ironing, cooking, shopping, etc were not tasks that could be done in a few minutes as they are today. I'm sure that some of the 2nd class women came from households with a maid or who sent their laundry out, but I'm also sure that a lot of them did it all themselves.

The study says that there was no systematic bias shown by the crew and in fact one of the 2nd class men who survived said that they thought the situation was worst for them, since they had to accommodate both women from their own class and those from the decks below, while 1st class had no such obligation.

The investigation that was held set the disparity down to the behaviour of the people involved.

I'm not actually interested in that so much though, as I am in the way people today might act. I know there are far fewer people willing to give up their seat in a train to a woman. I'm among them, although I'll make exceptions for pregnant ones and infirm people generally.

I suspect I'd give up my seat in the lifeboat if pressed, mostly because of the children and because I was strongly acculturated that way as a boy. If it came down to a random woman and myself, however, she might find herself having to do more than just ask for it as a right. A few years ago that would not have been the case. What has changed in me is that I've rubbed up against the worst of feminism's creations and that drew my attention to the whole issue of female preferment.

I'm interested in your view as a woman, Poirot. Would you take the seat if offered? Would you simply expect it to be offered? How would you justify that to yourself?

I agree with the point Anti is driving to.

Strong healthy men should put themselves first and foremost in situations of crisis - the weak, helpless, young, disabled, elderly, pregnant or anyone holding a small child should be left to survive on their own.

Now, who was it who said cockroaches would be sole survivors in the event of an apocalypse?

Well said Poirot, admire your patience. Have a feeling that Antiseptic is working in his shed on a baby incubator. Little Antiseptic clones, oh brave new world.

Well, I suppose if we're looking at things from a purely modern angle, then yes, those things have changed. Standing up for a woman is a thing of the past on public transport - understandably so for the younger generation. But even children are no longer chided to stand for the elderly in most cases I suspect.

Firstly, Anti, I'm of the opinion that the foremost influence on the "equality" of the sexes is our society's voracious consumer appetite. I think this paradigm has produced the perfect conditions for rabid feminism (as opposed to reasonable feminine aspirations)...we seem to have lost sight of the fact that we're in this together. I'm constantly entertained by the sniping between the sexes as we merrily march to the shops, buy up big, and then start sniping again....stoopid humans.

Yes, I'd take a seat, but then I also get a kick when, on the rare occasion these days, a man opens a door for me (?) : )