Titanic: Women and Children first? Think again

Submitted by fondueguy on Sun, 2011-01-09 23:27

Here is an article reporting on the casualty figures from the Titanic divided into class, age group, and gender. Excerpt:

'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.'

Something left unmentioned but can easily be calculated from the figures is that a third class woman had a 35% greater chance of being saved than a third class child.

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

I really appreciated this analysis, because it shows in numbers that the words "in the best interest of the child" are bullshit. It was true on the Titanic, and it is true in divorce court today. Feminism has nothing to do with children, it is in the best interests of women. It's all about women, women, women. That's what really blows my mind. How can women be so selfish and self-serving?

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by redwoodwriter on Mon, 2011-01-10 09:01

Has anyone seen/heard of a gender breakdown of the surviving and non-surviving children? I'm honestly wondering if we broke it down men/women/boys/girls how the stats would lay out. I'm going to venture that it was males (men and boys) who were paying with their lives so that women and girls could survive. What would be really telling is which group had the higher survival rate: women or girls?

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Demonspawn on Mon, 2011-01-10 20:15

Using the numbers at http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/children-on-titanic/

Gender, Class, Percentage Saved, (Saved / Died)

Men, First Class, 32% (57/118)
Women, First Class, 97% (140/4)
Boys, First Class, 66% (4/2)
Girls, First Class, 50% (2/2)

Men, Second Class, 8% (14/154)
Women, Second Class, 86% (80/13)
Boys, Second Class, 92% (11/1)
Girls, Second Class, 93% (14/1)

Men, Third Class, 16% (75/387)
Women, Third Class, 46% (76/89)
Boys, Third Class, 33% (16/33)
Girls, Third Class, 40% (16/24)

Men, Crew, 22% (192/693)
Women, Crew, 87% (20/3)
Boys, Crew, 0% (0/1)
Girls, Crew No Data

Men, Overall, 20% (338/1352)
Women, Overall, 74% (316/109)
Boys, Overall, 46% (31/37)
Girls, Overall, 54% (32/27)

So... Women > Girls > Boys > Men.

Not so unexpected.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Demonspawn on Mon, 2011-01-10 21:13

I doubt you'll find such a breakdown, a couple months ago, I looked for a breakdown of passenger survival based on class and sex, as this article has done (figures it comes out after I needed it) and couldn't find it. But there is a passenger list on wikipedia, complete with age, and children are labeled miss (girls) or master (boys), so it's possible to do it yourself.

Edit, then again, I could be wrong

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Kratch on Mon, 2011-01-10 21:15

Demonspawn

Holy fuck!!!

I thought it was especially wrong that a much higher percentage of women were saved over kids. But I just realized from your stats that the first class and second class women were mosty without children on the boat.

The first and second class women were largely without children and most of them were saved (220 in total).

The third class women, who actually did have children with them, had much greater chances of survival.

That means the classes of women who didn't have children (1st and 2nd) saved themselves over the children and the class of women who did have children with them (3rd) out survived the children.

The women take seats over stranger children and familiar children. Wow, its more horrible than I thought. I really want to vomit.

There's some article I saw a while back about a feminist who went on record shortly after the sinking of the Titanic defending the "woymenz and children first" mantra. Ill try and find it later.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by fondueguy on Tue, 2011-01-11 20:34