The Hudson Crash - Women and Children First?!?

Asked how he got out of the plane he said: "At first chaos, but everyone was kind of orderly, man. You know after a while everyone, we just, I just kept saying relax relax, women and children first. And then it just started filling with water, quick."

Source: BBC Airbus crashes in New York river

Heading toward the forward exits, and then standing on the wings, the passengers developed their pecking order. Women and children went first into the rafts, then people who had fallen into the river and been plucked out.

Source: Associated Press Survivors offer praise, gratitude after NY crash

But that's the point, isn't it: people almost died! And they didn't die! And as interesting as semantics are, and as much inherent patriarchal nonsense there is in the fabric of society coming out all the time, I for one am not going to get exercised about something someone said — maybe off the top of his head — in an effort to successfully save several hundred lives. I agree that if this is indeed the airline protocol it bears questioning, or at least cogent, non-anachronistic explanation beyond some hoary gallantry. But yesterday what could have been a tragedy, wasn't. We know women and children were evacuated first because they — and the men who followed — lived to talk about it. I would be curious to hear what the women on that flight have to say about it — maybe in, say, a week. But, as Ecclesiastes and the Byrds would have it, for everything there is a season.

Source: Jezebel Flight 1549 Survivors: Let's Talk About "Women And Children First"
Posted under: Gender Issues, My Youtube Videos, Feminism, Chivalry
Posted on: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 1:04 AM
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Comments

  1. Posted by: Mith on 1/21/2009 3:51 AM
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    Well I guess we should have to wait until some men actually die for this before they do anything...but using my psychic powers, I predict her reaction will be along these lines:

    "Sure, some men died because of a law that favors women, but I'm not going to talk about that right now. I think it's disrespectful to the women to have to talk about how their husband died. I hear according to reports, he pushed an old man out of the cabin before the rushing water pulled him in, where he was caught in the tangle of other men and drowned with them. No, I think this is a time for mourning...so I won't be posting for a week - or however long it takes for this shit to blow over so I don't have to talk about it."
  2. Posted by: LW on 3/20/2009 6:38 AM
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    Hm... I think the titanic probably had something to do with this behavior. Pretty much everyone watched titanic. I watched it at a very young age, so it's a natural feeling for everyone, especially when something's sinking, to refer back to the titanic and to the Women and Children first thing.

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The umbrella in particular is remembered as the symbol of the nineteenth century’s disturbing obsession with individualism. In Bellamy’s utopia, umbrellas have been replaced with retractable canopies so that everyone is protected from the rain equally.
“In the nineteenth century,” explains a character, “when it rained, the people of Boston put up three hundred thousand umbrellas over as many heads, and in the twentieth century they put up one umbrella over all the heads.”