Anti: “...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?”

Yep I would take it.

Anti: “On what grounds?”

It was there.

Jewelry,

No one really knows what they would do unless faced with the actual circumstances.

Once the decision is made we have to live with it.

The assessment and justification for ones actions usually occurs some time after the event. Most of us can justify these actions in our favour, it is the way of things. Sadly it is usually some distance from the truth but maybe the truth is not the best option for all concerned.

Better an acceptable fable that lets us sleep at night.

Take it easy.

SD

Dear Shaggy Dog,
Under the circumstances in which those unfortunate passengers of the Titanic found themselves, I have to wonder how much time would it have taken for the Male population to focus on the situation at hand and realise what had to be done....would this be borne of just tradition or were these males clear thinking enough to act in the best way accorded to them, ie, save the women and children first, and then the gentlemen themselves to follow the women and children. Did they have time to formulate a plan or were they actually acting on instinct alone. The fact that a panicked mine refuses to think clearly could have caused some gentlemen to act instinctively and take a seat in a life boat, in fact I believe that the movie of the Titanic saw one man dressed in womens' clothing, thus taking a seat in a life boat, he was either selfish, panicked or both. This thread has raised some interesting questions.....one wonders what really happened away from the set of the movie.
NSB

I agree NoisyScrubBird, it would be difficult to decide exactly what we would do, especially if we are thinking as people of today's society.

I would suggest that if we had a Titanic situation out in the middle of the ocean today, that it would most likely be an every man/woman for themselves situation unfortunately.

Back in 1912, men and women acted much differently than they do today apparently. Men were the leaders and most women and children did as they were told. I did read though, that quite a few women did refuse to get on the lifeboats unless their husbands could come too.

The thing is though, there were survivors from the Titanic, so we were told their recollections of the event.
Maybe they weren't all truthful about what really happened, but I guess we will never really know.

From a purely evolutionary perpective it would make sense to put the youngest people in the boat on the basis that (a) they have not yet had the opportunity to live a long and full life as older people have (b) they are more likely to breed and thus perpetuate the species (c) they are more likely to survive a night or two in a cold and freezing boat with a parent of a very young child or baby also safely within the lifeboat.

If my life was given up to ensure my child a seat in the boat of course most parents I imagine would take that option putting their needs last. Men have been conditioned to put themselves last in those situations and in the past I guess they have also been rewarded the spoils (depending on one's definition of spoils) but so have women too in a different way.

I don't think any of us really know how we would react in a crisis until it happens. Would we be selfless and altruistic and only thinking of others or would it be a case of first past the post to the lifeboat? I was once chased by a lunatic creep at a railway station and the adrenalin rush was extraordinary (not in a good way) and thankfully a very fast running speed got me out of danger. But fear plus that instinct to survive was very strong.

I would not expect a man to give up his seat for me but I am not sure I would refuse it if he did and then probably forever live with the guilt of being alive. Would it make a difference if the man was a father with young children whereas mine were all grown up? It probably would - well I would like to think I could be a bigger person in that situation. What we would do may not always match up with what we like to think about ourselves.

Houllie:Why does it matter?"

It matters to me because I have children - one of each sex. This present time of abundance based on mining is going to end by the time they're about the age I am now. I'd like to hope that my daughter hasn't wasted her time doing study for a job that won't exist and that my son hasn't been excluded from opportunities for study or work in the meantime because of his gender. In other words, I'd like to know this is a stable arrangement, but my best guess is that it's no more than a house of cards response to a short-term problem; that of the baby-boomers becoming geriatric. That should end about the smae time as the mining money.

Poirot:"If it all fell in a heap tomorrow, we'd be straight back to traditional gender roles. So its validity, in my opinion, is predicated on the construct of our societal model."

I agree 100%. I'd also say that out social model is unsustainable and that it IS going to fall in a heap. Possibly sooner rather than later, when women wake up to the fact they've been conned and what's more, they've conned themselves.