by Charles Krauthammer
You're on the Titanic II. It has just hit an iceberg and is sinking. And, as last time, ther
dayspringe are not enough lifeboats. The captain shouts, “Women and children first!” But this time, another voice is heard: “Why women?”simply
Why, indeed? Part of the charm of the successful movie Titanic are the period costumes, the period extravagance, and the period prejudices. An audience can enjoy the at a distance. Oddly, however, of all the period attitudes in the film, the old maritime tradition of “women and children first” enjoys total acceptance by modern audiences. Listen to the audience boo at the bad guys who try to sneak on the lifeboats with -- or ahead of -- the ladies.
But is not grouping women with children a raging anachronism? Should not any lf-respecting modern person, let alone feminist, object to it as insulting to women?欺诈猎人主题曲
tongueYet its usage is as common today as it was in 1912. Consider the examples taken almost at random from recent newspapers:
“The invaders gunned down the Indians, most of them women and children ...”
学雷锋树新风演讲稿“As many as 200 civilians, most of them women and children, were killed ...”
“At the massacre in Ahmici 103 Muslims, including 33 women and children, were killed ...”
广州高考复读学校poolsAt a time when women fly combat aircraft and run multi-national corporations, how can one not wince when adult women are routinely clasd with children? In Ahmici, it ems, 70 adult men were killed. And how many adult women? Not clear. When things get rious, when blood starts to flow or ships start to sink, you'll find them with the children.因为你英文
Children are entitled to special consideration for two reasons: helplessness and innocence. They have not yet acquired either the faculty of reason or the wisdom of experience. Conquently, they are defenless (incapable of fending for themlves) and blameless (incapable of real sin). That's why we grant them special protection. In an emergency, it is our duty to save them first becau they, helpless, have put their lives in our hands. And in wartime, they are suppod to b
英文字幕e protected by special immunity becau they can have threatened or offended no one.
The phra “women and children” attributes to women the same dependence and moral simplicity we find in five-year-olds. Such an attitude perhaps made n in an era dominated by male privilege. Given the disabilities attached to womanhood in 1912, it was only fair that a new standard of gender equality not suddenly be proclaimed just as lifeboat ats were being handed out. That deference -- a somewhat more urgent variation on giving up your at on the bus to a woman -- complemented and perhaps to some extent compensated for the legal and social constraints placed on women at the time.
But in our era of extensive social restructuring to grant women equality in education, in employment, in government, in athletics, what entitles women to the privileges -- and reduces them to the status -- of children?
Evolutionary psychologists might say that ladies-to-the-lifeboats is an instinct that
developed to perpetuate the species: Women are indispensable child-bearers. You can repopulate a village if the women survive and only a few of the men, but not if the men survive and only a few of the women. Women being more precious, biologically speaking, than men, evolution has conditioned us to give them the kind of life-protecting deference we give to that other ed of the future: kids.
The problem with this kind of logic, however, is its depressing reductionism. It's like a rious version of the geneticist's old joke that a chicken is just an egg's way of making another egg. But humans are more than just egg-layers. And traditional courtesies are more than just disguid survival strategies. So why do we say “women and children”?
