Costa Concordia: are women still prioritised over men in evacuation procedures?

[iverglas]

5. interesting tidbits in the article

The phrase "women and children first" was first associated with the sinking of HMS Birkenhead in 1852 but was subsequently also closely associated with the Titanic. The Wikipedia entry for the saying points out that of the Titanic casualties, "74% of the women on board were saved and 52% of the children, but only 20% of the men"

I had thought that what really determined your chances of survival on the Titanic was class; that's popular wisdom, I think. Seems I was wrong:

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."

But what about class? Well, third class women were 41% more likely to survive than first class men. And third class men were twice as likely to survive as second class men.

Yes, class is a far weaker variable in determining survival rate than sex or age. Indeed, most of the variance in first class vs. third class survival rates can be attributed to sex alone. The reason for this is simple: 44% of the first class passengers were women, while only 23% of the third class passengers were women. Because the survival rate for women was far greater than the survival rate for men, we would thus expect a much higher survival rate for first class passengers as a whole than for third class passengers as a whole.

Sex influenced the survival rates by class, rather than vice versa. There's a table there that shows the relative outcomes clearly. The article also points out that first class passengers had easier access to the boat deck because of their location. Well, that doesn't obviate the fact that they had a higher survival rate; they were in that location because of their class ... but yes, once disaster struck, they weren't intentionally privileged, it seems.

Anyhow, yes, Victorian artefact, if it ever existed. As the article says, people will generally act decently in terms of helping who needs help, and it's near impossible to make rules to govern behaviour in crises and panics. Hopefully, individuals will give precedence to others more in need of special assistance. When it's life or death, children first is a basic species survival rule maybe and worth preserving out of basic humanity, but after that, who is to say that it is better to for any individual to sacrifice their possibility of survival for someone else's?

My own experience -- boarding buses in the rain and the like -- has generally been that it's women first when it doesn't put men out, anyhow.

It certainly never applies in the labour market! Unless it's a case of "first fired".