“ Women and children first ” (less often “ Building the Birkenhead” , Birkenhead Drill [1] [2] [3] ) is a historical unwritten rule according to which the task of saving the lives of women and children has unconditional priority (as a rule, when leaving the ship and limited rescue resources). The phrase became most famous in connection with the crash of the Titanic liner in 1912, although the first known use of this principle occurred during the death of the Birkenhead ship.
During the XIX - early XX centuries, ships, as a rule, were not provided with a sufficient number of lifeboats for all passengers and crew. This was due to the fact that many passenger ships still had sailing equipment, and the space on the decks was extremely valuable for the crew to use and accommodate immigrant passengers (in the second half of the 19th century, the so-called IV class existed on many transatlantic liners, where they traveled stranded passengers huddled in tweendeks). In 1870, in response to a question in the UK House of Commons about the collapse of the Normandy, George Shaw-Lefebvre said [4] :
According to the Trade Council, it will be impossible to load so many boats on the steamboats between France and England so that these boats can accommodate a very large number of passengers, which are often carried by ships. They will clutter up the deck and add danger rather than reduce it.
At the turn of the 20th century, larger vessels began to be built, which meant an increase in the number of passengers on board. Nevertheless, safety rules regarding lifeboats remained unchanged. British law prescribed only boats with lifeboats whose tonnage was “ 10,000 gross register tons or more ”. The result of this approach was the emergence of moral dilemmas for passengers and crew of the ship in distress: whose life should be saved with a limited number of lifeboats?
The first known practice of skipping forward children and women arose on board the British Royal Navy ship “Birkenhead” in 1852 [5] . The captain ordered the women and children (20 people) to be put in the only small boat, and the men jump overboard. However, the main contingent of men on board were soldiers of the royal armed forces, and the colonel who commanded them, believing that men could be a danger to the well-being of the boat, gave the order to line up on the deck on the deck. The soldiers did not move even after breaking the ship into two parts 20 minutes after the shipwreck. Only 25% of the men survived the crash, the rest drowned or were eaten by sharks. None of the senior officers escaped. The incident received widespread coverage, and human prowess was immortalized in newspapers and paintings of that time, sung in poems such as the poem "The Soldier and the Sailor at the Same Time" by Rudyard Kipling . Samuel Smiles in his 1859 Self-Help book described the application of the principle of “ women and children first ” during the siege of Lucknow [6] , a specific phrase first appeared in William Douglas O'Connor's novel “Harrington: A True Love Story” [7] .
However, Avdotya Panaeva recalled that I. S. Turgenev told her about the fire on the ship on which he sailed from Stettin in May 1838, "and, without losing his spirit, he calmed the crying women and encouraged their husbands who were distraught from panic." Meanwhile, her acquaintance, who was also on this ship, in Turgenev identified the “young passenger” who was “punished by the ship's captain for having pushed them, when they lowered the boat to bring women and children off the burning ship , , wanting to board the boat before everyone else, and bothered with all the complaints about the captain that he did not allow him to board the boat, and exclaimed plaintively: mourir si jeune! (die so young!) ” [8] . Turgenev himself, already being terminally ill, described this episode in detail, not fencing himself, but supplementing it with examples of cowardice of other passengers, including a certain Russian general who pushed women away from boats, and only the courage of the captain and crew helped save the women, but, by According to Turgenev , the class principle prevailed in the distribution of seats in the lifeboat.
Although the phrase was never part of international law of the sea , it gained popularity after the death of the Titanic [9] . The application of this principle resulted in the rescue of 74% of women and 52% of children, while among men only 20% survived [10] . The officers of the Titanic interpreted the order of Captain Smith [11] [12] in different ways. Many of them tried to prevent men from boarding boats, while others ordered men (often crew members) to ride oars in boats, while still others, in the absence of women and children, filled boats with the remaining passengers. Many of the men who were rescued on boats, including White Star Line Joseph Ismey , were branded by the public as cowards [13] .
From the point of view of international law of the sea, there is no legal basis for the existence of such a principle. According to the rules of the Maritime International Organization , a ship in distress has 30 minutes to load all passengers into boats and leave for a safe distance from the ship [14] . History shows that applying the principle was the exception rather than the rule. A Uppsala University study published in 2012 showed that the historical survival rate of adult men in shipwrecks is higher than that of women or children. The article analyzed 18 maritime disasters, covering a period of one and a half centuries from 1852 to 2011. The same study showed that crew members have an advantage over passengers in terms of survival. The catastrophe "Titanic" is a special case and does not give an idea of the marine traditions in general [15] .
Women's clothing, especially Victorian clothing, plays a role in women's survival statistics at sea. On the sinking Royal Charter, many women continued to dress on the lower deck, instead of going upstairs and leaving the ship. Bulky clothes also limit the ability to stay on the surface with strong waves at sea [16] .
Some authors argue that the whole principle of “ women and children first ” is only a consequence of gender differences and can be used to justify inequality in a normal situation [17] . The British elite used the myth of the chivalrous behavior of men at sea to justify women's non-voting rights. According to this argument, there was no reason for empowering women to vote, as men would always put their interests above their own [18] .
Notes
- ↑ Kipling R. Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling . - Kessinger, 2005 .-- P. 305. - ISBN 1-4179-0750-9 .
- ↑ Anson R. Double Star . - Gregg Press, 1978. - P. 169. - ISBN 0-8398-2446-7 .
- ↑ Kalanov N.A., Skryagin L.N. The English-Russian Dictionary of Marine Idioms and Jargon. - M .: Morkniga, 2013, - ISBN 978-5-903081-91-2 , ISBN 978-5-03-003315-0 , p. 35
- ↑ The Parliamentary debates . - 1870: HM Stationery Office, 21 March 1870. - T. 200. - P. 323—324.
- ↑ Doughty S. So much for women and children first: Italian cruise disaster shows men need to be reminded of the rules of gallantry . dailymail.co.uk (17 January 2012). Date of treatment September 13, 2012. Archived October 31, 2012.
- ↑ Smiles S. Self-Help . - 1859. - ISBN 1-4068-2123-3 .
- ↑ Women and children first . phrases.org.uk. Date of treatment September 13, 2012. Archived October 31, 2012.
- ↑ Avdotya Panaeva. Memories . - 2002 .-- 448 p. - ISBN 5-8159-0198-9 .
- ↑ Marshall L. Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters . - 2004. - ISBN 1-4191-4735-8 .
- ↑ Anesi C. Titanic Disaster: Official Casualty Figures and Commentary . anesi.com. Date of treatment September 13, 2012. Archived October 31, 2012.
- ↑ Lord W. A Night to Remember. - New York: Bantam, 1997. - P. 63. - ISBN 978-0-553-27827-9 .
- ↑ Ballard R. The Discovery of the Titanic. - Toronto: Madison, 1987. - P. 37. - ISBN 978-0-446-67174-3 .
- ↑ Benedict M., Gardner R. When That Great Ship Went Down // In the face of disaster: true stories of Canadian heroes from the archives of Maclean's. - New York: Viking, 2005 .-- P. 204. - ISBN 0-670-88883-4 .
- ↑ By Tom de Castella. Costa Concordia: The rules of evacuating a ship . bbc.co.uk. Date of treatment September 13, 2012. Archived October 31, 2012.
- ↑ Elinder M., Erixson O. Every man for himself: Gender, Norms and Survival in Maritime Disasters . - Uppsala Universitet, 2012. Archived May 15, 2012.
- ↑ Stilgoe J. Lifeboat . - University of Virginia Press, 2003. - P. 234. - ISBN 0-8139-2221-6 .
- ↑ Women and Children First: Feminism, Rhetoric, and Public Policy / ed. Meagher S .. - SUNY Press , 2004 .-- ISBN 978-0-7914-8285-8 .
- ↑ Lucy Delap. Shipwrecked: women and children first? (eng.) . University of Cambridge Research (January 20, 2012). Date of treatment August 12, 2014.
Links
- Titanic - Women And Children First! (eng.) . logoi.com. Date of treatment September 13, 2012. Archived October 31, 2012.