As something of a companion piece to the post below, Mark Steyn relates that Kipling’s “damn tough bullet to chew” has become pretty much unchewable over the last couple centuries:
Sixty years later, the men on the Titanic – liars and thieves, wealthy and powerful, poor and obscure – found themselves called upon to “finish in style,” and did so. They had barely an hour to kiss their wives goodbye, watch them clamber into the lifeboats, and sail off without them. They, too, ‘ope’d it wouldn’t ‘appen to them, but, when it did, the social norm of “women and children first” held up under pressure and across all classes.
Today there is no social norm, so it’s every man for himself – operative word “man,” although not many of the chaps on the Titanic would recognize those on the Costa Concordia as “men.” From a grandmother on the latter: “I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls.”
Whenever I write about these subjects, I receive a lot of mail from men along the lines of this correspondent:
“The feminists wanted a gender-neutral society. Now they’ve got it. So what are you complaining about?”
And so the manly virtues (if you’ll forgive a quaint phrase) shrivel away to the so-called “man caves,” those sad little redoubts of beer and premium cable sports networks.
I don’t know that you can blame this on the feminists: While women have justly determined what it is to be a woman in today’s world, somewhere along the way, men have forgotten what it means to be men.
To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you’ve cover to ‘and, an’ leave an’ likin’ to shout;
But to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An’ they done it, the Jollies — ‘Er Majesty’s Jollies — soldier an’ sailor too!
Their work was done when it ‘adn’t begun; they was younger nor me an’ you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin’ in ‘eaps an’ bein’ mopped by the screw,
So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill, soldier an’ sailor too! — R. Kipling, from “Soldier an Sailor Too“
That bullet has become unchewable over the past few decades, thanks to feminists doing their best to denigrate the manly virtues.
Apparently, not much has changed since Churchill took a Med. cruise on a Italian cruise ship after his retirement. Some Italian journalists asked why an ex British Prime Minister should chose an Italian ship.
“There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship” said Churchill.
“First their cuisine is unsurpassed.”
“Second their service is superb.”
“And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first”.
I’ve never heard this story or quote but I’m laughing out loud and hope it’s true.
These days, there ought to be a form of marker for the radical feminist libbers in such situations so that they should not ‘suffer the indignity’ of having some putrid male chauvinist sacrifice for them.
Parenthetically, are we not today blessed that Kipling, in his short and abbreviated formal education, did not concentrate on STEM?
Who said that engineers cannot write?
The example set by the Birkenhead was by military men, who were under order. Not following the order would have met with death by officer’s bullet.
Damned lousy example to use as a model for civilian conduct.
For every woman who dies in the workplace, 13 men die on the job. Sorry, no woman’s arse has any more value than any man’s, and the shaming talk has no effect on me anymore.
I composed a haiku on this subject 20 years ago, after being cut off in traffic by a woman who acted like it was my fault:
Chivalry is dead.
Go, and drill your Birkenhead.
Your (vulgar word for vulva) is showing.
The Captain may not understand, a Naval Aviator being almost the perfect example of an Alpha guy, and married to an excellent woman, what the rest of us ordinary guys have to put up with in the sexuo-marital marketplace.
I have a sort of Buddhist attitude to teh wimminz since I have gotten Auld; the less I desire them, the less power they have over me.
Even aboard Titanic, the idea of “women and children first” was more a myth than reality.
Much of the “commonly held beliefs” about Titanic are.
If you look at the percentage of men to women who survived and compare that to the percentage of men and women aboard, it shows that they survived in representative percentages. in otherwords, no favoritism towards women over men.
In one notorious case, Lifeboat #1 got off with only 12 people (out of a 75 person capacity) and of those 12, 7 were crew, 5 were passengers. Only 2 of those passengers were women.
Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon, 3 members of their party, and seven crew to care for them.
Ah, but everyone forgets: Emergency planning does not take into consideration the emergency. That and a healthy dose of … less than stellar performance… Ran across this a while back.
Testimony of William Lucas
Makes for some interesting reading of what it looked like at the deckplate level.
That’s not correct. The total percentage of women who survived was 74%. For men, it’s 20%. All of the children in first and second class were rescued (as compared to only 8% of the second class men).
There was a very, very, high survival advantage in being either a woman or a child. (And class had nothing to do with it).
See the official casualty figures here.
http://www.anesi.com/titanic.htm
JTG … Just don’t tar us all with the same brush. The Lex Babes aren’t bristling feministas. They’re real women who love alpha men just the way they are. Believe me JTG. At this point in my life I’m deeply, permanently grateful that most men just ignore the silly feminists. I know they do. One helped me across the street the other day, and looked relieved when I thanked him.
Marianne
No one here would think of tarring the Lex babes with that brush Marianne. Even in his odder moments, not even JTG would. At least I think so.
I do know he’s a Rat Fink after his behavior on a previous thread. But, of course, I was counting on it.
Besides, we all know they know how to use a firearm. Wouldn’t do to offend them, not one bit.
Agreed a .357 mag in petite hands is reverse Viagra…
Well, I do often tend to write the first thing which comes into my head when I’ve had a few. I sometimes dread checking my email the next morning…
The Lex Babes seem to be ladies. I was gently reared, so I tend to treat all women as ladies IRL, and even on the Net, unless they are super mean and nasty.
Hey, guys.
Don’t get this lady mad at you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI
She would have been a good addition to any defending against the Comanche attacks before the introduction of the repeating rifle.
As afraid as I was, I could not push a women or a child out behind me. I know that without a doubt.
Lex I have to disagree, at least in part. The feminists have subjected men to saturation propaganda bombardment for fifty years…and it’s gotten nasty in the last thirty or so. Men have become the universal scapegoat.
It’s hard to ask someone you’ve spent three decades bashing to lay down his life for you. At least successfully.
At the same time, our society has made a fetish of holding less than stellar personalities up as role models. Teenagers grow up admiring movie stars and athletes – entertainers of one sort or another. People whose prominence comes from pleasing others. Not the sort of hard-nosed people you need in a crisis. The poor history education our kids receive doesn’t help – they don’t know enough of it to look for role models from the past.
I can only say that I have observed any number of changes in our society in my lifetime. Very few of them have been for the better. It is, perhaps, a dated view but I have always said that it may have taken an Act of Congress to make me an officer, but that I was a gentleman long before that.
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful.”
C.S.Lewis
WTH does this have to do with women claiming special privilege, that their lives are more valuable than men’s lives? This is just shaming language, and tore out of context at that.
It has nothing to do with women “claiming special privilege,” but everything to do with men acting like men. If you don’t get it – if you are so immune to the notion that there still exists a standard of gentlemanly conduct – then God help you. It’s only “shaming language” for those who should feel some measure of shame. From my standpoint, it appears that our society could stand to bring the notion of shame back again – we’ve apparently gone too far the other way, as evidenced by your words and the attitude behind them.
Padre, I didn’t see an ounce of argument or reason in your reply, only more shaming language–”A REAL man shuts up and dies quietly.” At the very least I would expect from you an appeal to the Gospel, “No greater love… “, but instead just mock shock, borderline insult and shaming–language attempting to make me ashamed I questioned what you don’t dare question.
Padre, if all you have are abstractions (such as “gentleman,” a term that shifts and slithers all over the place depending on the audience) that have the end result of telling me to get in my place and die without stirring up any trouble, I’m not with you on this one.
Zane:
Sir,
I believe your disagreement is because you assume that human life has only instrumental value while most people on this thread assume it has intrinsic value. From their assumption they conclude that children and women should be saved first. They see a value in protecting those that can’t protect themselves. This appear illogical to the instrumental view which values life based on what it can do. Hence a strong male would be worth saving more that an old grandmother since he could add more to the society.
More to Lex’s point, we as men are free moral agents (my assumption) and we can act in whichever way we choose in these situations. The fact that many women are totally disrespectful of men does NOT force me to act they way they want me to. It just makes it more difficult. I would hope in such a situation I would act in a manner which would bring honor, i.e. respect from those who share my intrinsic assumption.
Eric, I believe you are on to something, but that you have my point reversed. Men have the same intrinsic value as women, so why are men automatically expected to die in order to save women? I am not arguing against the justice in helping the weak, but neither am I willing to carve in stone the order in which we should board the lifeboats. I simply think there is something perverse in blaming men for taking the same actions that a women is allowed to take without any blame at all, solely because she is a woman–are all women that weak and helpless that they can’t take responsibility for themselves in such circumstances?
If you feel that there is an inner moral necessity for you, the individual, to make that sacrifice, by all means do it. Your inner moral compass should be your guide, not the external prattling of others who think they have the authority to tell us how we should all behave.
By contrast, anyone criticizing these men for not being “real men” or “gentlemen” should sniff carefully about themselves for the scent of cheaply bought moral superiority.
Zane,
Sorry if I mistated your position. I didn’t mean to imply that. I made an assumption based on your statement.
Since, in general, woman are weaker than men I would argue that men have an obligation to protect rather than prey on those weaker than themselves. To substantiate that however would bring into play a whole raft of world view assumptions that is beyond the scope of this thread.
eric, no need to apologize (I hope this posts below yours), you hit on something I needed to clarify. When you talk about the “whole raft of world view assumptions,” though, I think you are hitting the central point of my objection: the assumption is that men should sacrifice themselves for women. However, it is just that, an assumption and a largely unexamined one.
Zane,
You’re going astray when you state that “Men have the same intrinsic value as women.” They don’t. The underlying premise in deciding who survives when all cannot, is not the inherent value of the individual, but at the basest level, the survival of the species. You don’t need a lot of men to continue the species, you do need a lot of women and children. This is why at the subsistence level, men are the hunters, a riskier endeavor than gathering.
I expect that you’ll reply (as the feminists do) that we no longer exist at the subsistence level, but those moral imperatives that lead to species survival, and not those that lead to individual survival, must be the underpinning of the social structure.
See RAH’s speech at the Naval Academy on the subject: http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2008/03/pragmatics-of-patriotism.html
Mike B,
Granted that survival is the first and necessary condition for anything else. However, you beg the question in the second paragraph–there may be feminists making the argument, but with 3.5 billion women in the world, we’re in no risk of running short of breeders, and so it does not follow that automatically sacrificing men’s lives to save women “must” be the underpinnings of a social structure.
So you’re saying we have one moral code with a sufficient number of women, and a different one with a lower number?
What’s the number? And who picks it?
Morals don’t work that way.
Zane:
So if I understand your position you are simply expousing the concept that men and women have the same intrinsic value as opposed to various religions that say men have greater intrinsic value or as I have proposed that women have greater.
Mike B:
You are proposing an instrumental view of human life similar to what JKB does later. So if I understand Zane correctly, which I may not be doing, then you’re simply talking past each other. Without agreement on that basic assumption I don’t believe you’ll convince him of the correctness of your viewpoint.
Mike B, you have necessity confused with morality. Necessity precedes morality; one cannot be moral if one is not alive, for example, and you can’t get all wrapped up about the morality of dying for your women if you don’t have any (necessitating raiding another tribe and stealing its women, I suppose). And yes, the number of women you have certainly does alter your notions of moral behavior, something passing familiarity with polygamy, hypergamy and the Rape of the Sabines should make crystal clear.
If you are saying that men must always sacrifice themselves to save women because that was necessary to save the tribe in some mystic past, well, rubbish. It is one thing to take greater risks and pay a price for it in early death or maiming, it is another to say that dying is expected of them because they are male. The necessity for such sacrifice simply does not exist, and to sacrifice men to such a false ideal is profoundly immoral–there is no biological imperative, and there is none in the animal kingdom, either, where males may die defending kin or even larger clan, but they do not just lay down and die on command for their kin and the females (and lords and priests and corporate bosses and politicians) do not hide behind them, telling them what wonderful (insert plural mammalian name here) they are to sacrifice their lives for them.
All of this is a different question than whether it is good for a society to have men who are prepared to make such sacrifices, and that is absolutely an important moral question to debate (although I’m not going to). However, from the beginning of this thread all I’ve repeatedly emphasized is that we automatically, reflexively assume that it is good and proper for men to die by the truckload for their country, society, culture, whatever the lords and priests and corporate bosses and politicians want to call it–but no one ever asks why it is so. And if you haven’t thought it through more carefully than most of these arguments indicate, maybe you should think twice before you start criticizing the men on the Costa Concordia, all of whom–ALL–have been tarred by the whining slurs of a few old harpies from the Anglosphere in the press, despite the fact that they seem to have escaped quite nicely, thank you.
I’ve gone on way too long on this, from here on out you can fire at will.
Zane, it’s not shaming language. It’s a description of what’s been going on in Western societies since World War 2. The traditional masculine virtues have been under attack since 1945. When you attack those virtues, they aren’t there when needed.
Mike M., I concur with you that the traditional masculine virtues have been under attack. However, any man or woman who tells me that I am not a man, not a real man, not a gentleman on the basis of my questioning the assumption that women (notice, not children, but women) go first is in fact using shaming language. Nothing keeps men in line like shaming them, even when they have no reason whatsoever to feel shame.
The loudest whiners in the press were two Aussie women over 60, neither intrinsically or instrumentally more valuable than anyone else–who the Hell made them the arbiters of right and wrong? Until today, all the recovered dead were men and a child–why didn’t one of those Aussie women make sure that child was on a lifeboat instead of blaming men that she had to wait in line? Half the crew was female, does that mean that half the crew gets to leave while the getting’s good? Where’s the shame for their abandoning the passengers?
There’s just a lot of self-serving hypocrisy in the whining.
Not that I have any knowledge or a strong opinion either way on such things, but…
I suspect a future and better world would be achieved by saving females at the expense of males. Is that not why we shoot bucks, but not does, and shoot pheasant roosters but not hens?
I think it is far better for all to have a few remaining bulls in the pasture of many more heifers, rather than a bunch of disgruntled and unrequited bulls with only few remaining heifers. Nature is a good teacher of chivalry, is it not?
Protect the future…. women and children first!
The hungry wolf / bear / killer whale / carnivorous predator will eat anything. Some, but not all, mammals and birds will react out of instinct to protect their young from predators, but rarely at the cost of their own lives. I don’t think nature has much of anything to teach us about chivalry.
Flit, I hope you are sitting down, but I agree with you. Which is why we called them the “fairer sex”. And why society has tried to spare them the horrors of soldiering war since the Middle Ages. They have insisted upon it, and now run the risk of being “destroyed” in the same way that Paul describes the ruination of his generation in “All Quiet”.
Feminism has come to the rather startling conclusion that, men and women aren’t just equal. That they are, in fact, the same. Ours is a graceless age.
I would not be able to live with the knowlege that I had not done my best to save as many women and children as possible. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak, after all, as a cabinet maker once said, we ARE our brother’s keeper.
+10
Also – this principle can’t apply in evacuating airliners. Any man standing around allowing women and children to go ahead of him is just impeding the process.
And by that I don’t mean ‘trample the nearest grandmother or toddler.’
As a fairly independent woman who has reaped the advantages of feminism – right to vote is the #1 advantage IMO – I do confess I bristle when a man claims that we are weaker than they are.
And yet – in general we are, at least on a physical basis. I may be stronger in other ways but the bottom line is, in a major crisis (like a sinking ship) a man’s physical size and strength are definitely superior to mine.
And quite frankly, I would credit vast intelligence to any woman who was smart enough to recognize it and allow a man to assist her in that circumstance. The woman who refuses because she isn’t going to allow what she sees as a chauvinistic male to help her … is a fool.
As Marianne so accurately put it – and to take it to a more generalized viewpoint – a woman worth her own sense of feminism and self-awareness, will respect the alpha male in her life and allow him the honor of taking care of her.
Because in the end – women deserve to be cared for by the men who love and care for them; and those same men deserve the opportunity to exercise the chivalry that is born within each of them.
We should first acknowledge that the women and children first only applied to those of a certain class. On the Birkenhead, they were the families of officers, I doubt it would appear so gallant if there’d been wives and children of the lower ranks aboard in excess of the boat’s capacity. It speaks well of the men aboard the Titanic that quite a few of the women from 3rd class were included in the boats. Only a few years before, they and their children would have been driven back below decks for an imprisoned drowning.
We might also ponder the terrible commentary from these lamenters had the rule been enforced as it was in times past, at the point of an officer’s gun. Imagine the rending of clothing over that occurrence.
Today the situation is far more complex. Helping the weak might be a better rule, but how do we discern? Helping the children, of course, but up to what age? The now affixed 26? 14? In 1852, a 14 yr old boy would have been expected to do his duty and stand his post along with the men. But what of a 14-yr old girl, similar duties but as the evacuation proceeds, her value as breeding stock would exceed her value as crew member. As for the women, beyond those looking after the children, and how do we decide the single father with children, their precedence over men is due to their usefulness as breeding stock. Not a great value in a world of 7 billion, but still a consideration. And what of the women in the protector class, do we insult them by tossing them in with the weak or do we honor them as they stand by their duty as protectors?
Let me re-enter the discussion to draw your attention to the great problem the Chinese have made for themselves by rationing their citizens to one baby per couple. The rule made 40 or 50 years ago has resulted in an increasing shortage of women in the reproductive age group. The rule didn’t take into account the preference for male babies/heirs over females. Almost all racial groups prefer to have male heirs to carry on the traditions, name etc. Mao’s bunch never thought of this when they established the one baby per couple rule. Now the Chinese males who want to set up families are having trouble finding suitable females. Or any females willing to bear their children.
Sad stuff, really.
Marianne
Actually the Chinese preference for male children is based on economic necessity within the Chinese culture. At the time the “one child” rule was adopted China was mostly rural and agricultural. The custom in China was that as male children matured and married they, and their new wives, continued to live with his parents and worked together as a family. And, as the parents reached the age where they could no longer work, or take care of themselves, the son and his wife would take that responsibility.
Of course, the obverse was that as a girl child reached maturity and married she moved in with her new husband and his parents.
It was readily apparent to all that having a girl child meant that you would have no one to take care of you in your old age.
In a Communist society in which every action was monitored by the Party it was clear that having a female child would preclude getting permission to get pregnant again to try for a male child and that the only way to have another chance at old age security was to terminate the current pregnancy as soon as possible after it was determined that the fetus was female. That is the primary cause of the high rate of abortions in China and the resulting imbalance in the male to female ratio in the population now.
All I can say is what I posted over at `my place` the other day:
http://www.hogday-afternoon.blogspot.com/2012/01/do-rats-really-leave-sinking-ship.html
I am undoubtedly an alpha female, however, only really in the company of women or men who are not alphas. With an alpha male, I completely step in line and follow, as long as I trust. If there are leadership issues, abusiveness, history of poor choices, I won’t follow and will assert myself accordingly. I am very comfortable with who I am and what I bring to the table and have no qualms whatsoever at admitting my weaknesses, physical strength being a big one. If I had chosen the military path, I’d have looked to go into a strategic role, some sort of support role, nothing with a gun or fighting. I would suck at it and I’d be a weak link. Why put a team in danger with my vast weaknesses? However my mind is sharp and I’m very logical. I can be an assist, just not the same way as men. (I did not choose the military for a reason.)
As for women and children first, my struggles are many. I’m more along the lines of the truly helpless need to be first, those that need an assist. The elderly, the physically compromised whether that be handicapped or from injury, the children… always the children. I would struggle jumping on a life boat and watching a bunch of men die…. just because they were men. That’s not in my personality to sit and watch others work towards something and not offer assistance if I can be of it. My DNA isn’t wired that way. I’d totally be in the thick of things trying to offer assistance even if was at life boats getting people aboard or working on logistics to try to keep things operating. If in the end my job was done and we were all leaving and some man wanted to be so chivalrous to throw me over the side in hopes I’d escape death, so be it. I’d not argue.
But, none of this has anything to do with being a feminist. (Please, I was a stay at home Mom for the years my children were small because that was my place at the time and the right thing to do and I didn’t want someone else raising my babies.) This all has to do with the fact that I’m NOT the type of personality that says, “Oh! Run away! Run away!” Life is not a spectator sport.
Stealing a concept from a book series, you would probably be an Omega. Outside the normal chain. When necessary, able to step in, knock some heads, and step back out
Hey, I’m cool with that. I used to have a boss who would get frustrated in meetings, come out to my desk, push me in the room and say, ‘Fix this’ and shut the door and leave. He said it was his equivalent of setting a bomb off in a room and he used to laugh at the poor souls who were stuck with me. But, that was my job, that’s what the lead needed me for and I knew in the end, we’d all be in a better place because he had a big plan.
Marianne – clinical studies, in China, India, and S Korea, all point to unhealthy effects on society from an overabundance of males – including increased violence and crime from low status males without marriage and family prospects.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/consequences-of-sex-selective-abortion-increased-aggression-violence-and-cr/
Well, compare and contrast skiing in the Alps with skiing in the Rockies, specifically the queueing behavior and general sense of order and general respect that exists in the American/English world, as compared to the general sense of “every man and woman for him or her self” on the continent of Europe.
The violators in America will be quickly chastised by the crowd for violations of exppected norms, while in Europe the mannered quickly adopt the rude behavior of the locals so as not to be run over.
While there has no doubt been a decline of gentlemanly behavior here, I suggest that the behavior on an Italian liner would have been much the same 50 years ago as today.
Zane,
Sir,
You say “…to sacrifice men to such a false ideal is profoundly immoral…”
That sounds “profoundly” like a moral imperative on your part. What standard are you using to tell others that their position is immoral?
And if it is an “appeal to the Gospel” that you seek, then I would say “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit ye like men, be strong (1 Cor.16:13).”
Okay, it’s shaming language. Next question.
Some/most women I admit I will demur and bow to, out of my upbringing and traditional chivalry. Some other women too, perhaps because of their accomplished position.
But I revel in the uncommon accomplishments – of the likes of St. Joan of Arc, Boudica, and that pirate known as the “Sea Queen of Connaught,” Gráinne Ní Mháille!
I had long taught my daughter for better or worse, who now works in a supposed closed society and a former man’s world, how to survive and prosper there. Well taught, being attractive, and having to live growing up with being told that she had to compete with her older brother because she was “not my “1st born male son” she now understands that my difficult training was for the real world – as much as I loved her – and she has no problems today. We now both laugh about it.
Sorry. Too many broken links on that earlier link…. “Gráinne Ní Mháille”
Try Grace O’malley, Female Irish Pirate.
A “modest proposal” I saw on one of the “Manosphere” blogs (paraphrased by me) :
Long-distance endurance swimming is the one sport at which gals generally do better than guys, what with having more bouyancy and better insulation. Therefore, if there are not enough places in the boats and land is in sight, a case could be made for tossing the healthier of the gals into the water to swim for it, possibly maximizing the total number of survivors.
I see a flaw in this proposal when it comes to meeting said women again on shore, ‘specially if they might be armed. Wet cats come to mind.
P.s. I remember reading about a cruising sailboat couple in which the husband, wishing to be prepared, did lots of “Man overboard!” drills. The thing was, it was always a “Wife overboard” drill. After one too many of these, the wife just swam ashore and immediately filed for divorce, possibly even while still wet.
Species survival, folks. Men are expendable. Women and children ain’t.
JTG … I’m giggling about your story about the cruising sailboat couple. Good for her. Having been one half of a cruising sailboat couple myself, and at times I got annoyed at being ordered around by my Skipper. Being a smart man, my husband didn’t get carried away giving orders very often. He looked ahead and realized that when we got home from the sail, I either would cook him dinner. Or not. And by then he would be very hungry.
Marianne
Just to lighten the debate, click on the link for the classic “It’s hard to kiss the lips at night that chew your a** all day long”. There is a reference to airplanes, lest I be accused of going off topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjkLf_X88WM