Of the 2,207 people aboard the Titanic when it hit the iceberg, 1,664 (75%) were male passengers or crew members and only 438 (19.8%) were female passengers or crew members. The odds a male passenger would survive the accident were 1 in 5.91 (16.9%). The odds a female passenger would survive were 1 in 1.37 (73%). The percentage of survival for male crew members was 21% vs. a 91% survival rate for the 22 female staff on board. And the odds a child would survive were an astronomical 1 in 2.
That 316 women and 57 children survived is evidence that the emergency protocol of “women and children” first was followed. Even among children, survival odds were split along gender lines. A girl was 62% more likely to be saved than a boy.
Two categories of women passengers were among the most fortunate:
- Women traveling first class—they were two times more likely to survive the disaster than males traveling third class.
- Women with children fared better than either women alone, or men in any category. Seventy-four percent of women accompanying children survived.
In the wake of the disaster, gripping accounts of both survival and sacrifice captured the popular imagination. None were more poignant than those of men who stayed on deck while the last lifeboats were lowered into the water. The Philadelphia North American rhapsodized over John Jacob Astor “smiling and waving farewell to the young wife soon to be a mother,” Archibald Butt, aide to two presidents, “calmly controlling with perfect courtesy the well-nigh frenzied women, and placing them in safety,” and John B. Thayer, “surrendering a place of safety in favor of Mrs. Thayer’s serving-maid.” “Unconscious of their heroism,” these men went to their deaths because “‘the rule is women and children first’ [and] they could no more think of violating that rule than they could show open fear.”
The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 coincided with a renewed push to win the vote for women in both the United States and England. Those opposed to giving women a political voice seized upon these noble examples of male chivalry. “Let the suffragists remember this,” an editorial in the Baltimore Sun read, “when the Lord created women and placed her under the protection of man he had her well-provided for.” A writer in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch contended that women could either have boats or votes. If a woman began talking women’s rights, she should “be answered with the word Titanic, nothing more—just Titanic.”
Margaret Brown, herself a Titanic survivor who was dubbed “the unsinkable Molly Brown” after being “brined, salted and pickled in mid-ocean,” bristled at the notion that women should have been saved ahead of men, based solely on gender. “Women demand equal rights on land—why not on sea?” she asked. The men who went down with the ship, she contended, “should have saved themselves for their families’ sakes.”
Women’s suffrage advocates in Great Britain weighed in as well. Annie Kenny of the Women’s Social and Political Union said of course women should come first because, in her opinion, “the lives of women are more useful to the race than the lives of men.” She belittled the sacrifice of many of the male passengers who accepted a death by drowning rather than fight a woman or child for scarce lifeboat space. While a man can show heroism in a crisis, Annie Kenny maintained, “women cheerfully starve for their husbands and children and starving is much slower and more painful than shipwreck.”
But many were stirred by the stories of male sacrifice. President and Mrs. Taft counted Archibald Butt as a personal friend, and the First Lady dedicated herself to raising money for a memorial “in gratitude to the chivalry of American manhood.” Erected in 1931, it was removed in 1972 to a remote spot to make room for the erection of the Kennedy Center. But even so, every year on April 15, the anniversary of the sinking, members of the Men’s Titanic Society still dress in evening wear and make their way to a backwater site near Fort McNair, DC. The memorial boasts a 15-foot statue of a man with arms outstretched—the same pose Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio made famous in the film Titanic as they stood in the bow of the ship.
In 2003, a reporter tagged along. One society member raised a glass of champagne: “Chivalry, gallantry, bravery, and grace—in these times those ideals seem to have all but disappeared. But by our remembrance they are born again. And in our lives they can live again.”
And just to prove that the debate over women’s rights (and women’s gratitude) is still bubbling, a fellow member added his own addendum. “We’d like to apologize for the women who have forgotten.”
| WOMEN | CHILDREN | |||
| TOTAL | Saved (%) | TOTAL | % Saved | |
| First Class | 140 | 97.22% | 6 | 100% |
| Second Class | 203 | 86.02% | 24 | 100% |
| Third Class | 76 | 46.06% | 27 | 34.18% |
| Crew | 20 | 86.96% | ||
Click here for more on the Titanic.
Comments
anonymous
3 years ago
This would never happen in today’s society, and likely would not have in the Titanic circumstance if the British commanders did not have guns. Why should a 50 year old woman be saved for a 30 year old man? Lives are of equal value. There would have likely been more saved if they filled all the boats with families and did not leave some go empty in the confusion. Thank God for the feminist movement……at least people are treated more equally.
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anonymous
3 years ago
@ Genevieve
THE BUTTHURT IS ASTRONOMICAL!
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anonymous
3 years ago
@ Genevieve
Good post, and I don’t disagree with most of your comment, although perhaps the implications are lacking a little detail. I’m not American myself so you’d know more than me, I’m English, but for starters, how about researching how many women actually wanted to get up into politics?
You’ll find the numbers of women who actually aim for it in the first place are woefully outnumbered by white men – black people also had little chance, so it’s not even about just gender, but ethnicity as well.
Although I do agree that men did have an advantage in the US over political action in the past century, you’re still essentially comparing the value of a fellow mans life, to the unsatisfaction of a woman not getting high up the tree in your country.
Is that really fair? At least she still has her life.
For those men on Titanic, they didn’t ask for sympathy or a little appreciation or recognition, they just had to die, they didn’t have a choice.
We shouldn’t be thinking about what gender someone is, but look at them as fellow humans, and they all have the right to life. Gender doesn’t have anything to do with how an individual can contribute to a developing society. After all, look at how Joan of Arc changed the fate of a nation single-handedly. It doesn’t take politics and men dressed in smart suits to make things happen.
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anonymous
3 years ago
To genevieve: there are more women than men, why dont even you vote for a woman to be president?
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anonymous
3 years ago
Thanks, minnix1325! The age qualifications between classes are really interesting (and depressing).
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anonymous
3 years ago
Really interesting article!
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minnix1325
3 years ago
From the author: The age of children differed according to class (another reminder of how class-bound society was at that time.) For example, 14 year old Lucile Carter in First Class was classified as a child, but Annie McGowan in Steerage (also 14) was considered to be an adult. Child labor was still the norm for children below the middle class, though the progressive movement was about to transform that reality.
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anonymous
3 years ago
Talk about pent up feminist rage…
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JB24
3 years ago
wow. good burn, Genevieve!
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Genevieve
3 years ago
Yes, Anonymous, I agree! As a nation we respect men so little that in 224-years we Americans have never elected a single man to the White House, nor have more than a couple men ever sat on the highest court in the land. It’s outrageous that we let so much of our intellectual capital go to waste like that!
Just think; despite comprising half the population, our poor, disrespected men have rarely been appointed to lead the Cabinets, the ranks of men in Congress have historically numbered a dismal 0%-10%, and their presence at the helm of Fortune 500 companies has been equally absent. It’s as if people think they aren’t capable, or that they shouldn’t be pushed in such a direction as boys.
Why, only in the past few decades have all Ivy League universities finally admitted that the intellect of men is as worthy of respect as the intellect of women, and at last not only begun to admit qualified men as students, but even named a couple of men to lead the universities themselves lately.
Anonymous, is it possible you are one of the male virginity statistics mentioned elsewhere in this week’s BOO, who going on 40, just hasn’t found Mrs. Right yet?
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anonymous
3 years ago
What age qualifies children? Is it under 18 like today? Or was it another age?
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anonymous
3 years ago
“Women and children first” is the phrase that sums up contemporary American values. This country has no respect for men whatsoever.
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