Women and Children First on the Titanic – But Not the Lusitania

A breakdown of passenger lists indicates that survival of the fittest reigned on the Lusitania because of how quickly it sank.

By Maev Kennedy, The Guardian
02 March, 2010

The frightfully British stiff upper lip disaster, with women and children ushered towards the lifeboats and everyone else queueing politely, only happens if there is enough time: the hours after the Titanic hit the iceberg were a model of decorum, but the short sharp shock of the sinking of the Lusitania was a panic-stricken scramble of the youngest and fittest to escape.

Scientists have studied the casualty figures for the two famous passenger liner disasters, and found that although the ships, passenger numbers and fatalities were very similar, the breakdown of the casualty figures was not.

On both ships the captains gave orders for women and children to be saved first – but the response was very different.

The Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage on 14 April 1912, and took several hours to sink with the loss of 1,517 lives.

The highest percentage of survivors were women, children, or people accompanying a child. Statistically males, adults and passengers without children were less likely to survive.

A woman's chance of survival was more than 50% greater than a man's, a child had a 14.8% higher probability of surviving than an adult, and an adult accompanying a child was 19.6% more likely to survive than one without.

The Lusitania took just 18 minutes to sink on 7 May 1915, torpedoed by a German U-boat just off Kinsale in Ireland, on a voyage between New York and Liverpool: 1,198 died, and it was literally survival of the fittest among the 639 who escaped.

Fit young passengers, aged between 16 and 35, had the best chance of survival. Men in that age group had a 7.9% better chance of survival, and women 10.4%. Slightly more women survived, but there was no significant difference between the sexes.

Not only did the fittest get to the lifeboats first, but when the boats were launched inefficiently, with some tilting or rocking violently, they were more likely to be able to hang on or to get back in if they fell out.

Class also played a part: first class passengers on the Titanic were more likely to find a place in a lifeboat, but fared worse in the stampede on the Lusitania.

The scientists, who publish their findings this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, conclude: "This difference could be attributed to the fact that the Lusitania sank in 18 minutes, creating a situation in which the short-run flight impulse dominated behaviour. On the slowly sinking Titanic, there was time for socially determined behavioural patterns to re-emerge."

They noted that on the Titanic the women and children first order was enforced by the crew, and accepted by the passengers – "otherwise the passengers could have easily revolted against such a protocol".

The study could be useful for predicting behaviour in other disasters, they suggest.

"Knowing human behaviour under extreme conditions provides insight into how widely human behaviour can vary, depending on differing external conditions."

Study Finds Cohabiting Doesn’t Make a Union Last

By Sam Roberts, The New York Times
March 2, 2010

Couples who live together before they get married are less likely to stay married, a new study has found. But their chances improve if they were already engaged when they began living together.

The likelihood that a marriage would last for a decade or more decreased by six percentage points if the couple had cohabited first, the study found.

The study of men and women ages 15 to 44 was done by the National Center for Health Statistics using data from the National Survey of Family Growth conducted in 2002. The authors define cohabitation as people who live with a sexual partner of the opposite sex.

“From the perspective of many young adults, marrying without living together first seems quite foolish,” said Prof. Pamela J. Smock, a research professor at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “Just because some academic studies have shown that living together may increase the chance of divorce somewhat, young adults themselves don’t believe that.”

The authors found that the proportion of women in their late 30s who had ever cohabited had doubled in 15 years, to 61 percent.

Half of couples who cohabit marry within three years, the study found. If both partners are college graduates, the chances improve that they will marry and that their marriage will last at least 10 years.

“The figures suggest to me that cohabitation is still a pathway to marriage for many college graduates, while it may be an end in itself for many less educated women,” said Kelly A. Musick, a professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell.

Couples who marry after age 26 or have a baby eight months or more after marrying are also more likely to stay married for more than a decade.

“Cohabitation is increasingly becoming the first co-residential union formed among young adults,” the study said. “As a result of the growing prevalence of cohabitation, the number of children born to unmarried cohabiting parents has also increased.”

By the beginning of the last decade, a majority of births to unmarried women were to mothers who were living with the child’s father. Just two decades earlier, only a third of those births were to cohabiting couples.

The study found that, over all, 62 percent of women ages 25 to 44 were married and 8 percent were cohabiting. Among men, the comparable figures were 59 percent and 10 percent.

In general, one in five marriages will dissolve within five years. One in three will last less than 10 years. Those figures varied by race, ethnicity and sex. The likelihood of black men and women remaining married for 10 years or more was 50 percent. The probability for Hispanic men was the highest, 75 percent. Among women, the odds are 50-50 that their marriage will last less than 20 years.

The survey found that about 28 percent of men and women had cohabitated before their first marriage and that about 7 percent lived together and never married. About 23 percent of women and 18 percent of men married without having lived together.

Women who were not living with both of their biological or adoptive parents at 14 were less likely to be married and more likely to be cohabiting than those who grew up with both parents.

The share who had ever married varied markedly by race and ethnicity: 63 percent of white women, 39 percent of black women and 58 percent of Hispanic women. Among men in that age group, the differences were less striking. Fifty-three percent of white men, 42 percent of black men and 50 percent of Hispanic men were married or had been previously married at the time of the survey.

By their early 40s, most white and Hispanic men and women were married, but only 44 percent of black women were.

Images of Gender: Kanye West

Intelligent Men 'Less Likely to Cheat'

Intelligent men are less likely to cheat on their wives because of evolution, a new analysis of social trends indicates.

By Matthew Moore, The Daily Telegraph
28 Feb 2010

Researchers at a British university found that men with higher IQs place greater value on monogamy and sexual exclusivity than their less intelligent peers.

But the connection between conventional sexual morality and intelligence is not mirrored in women, it seems.

The researchers could find no evidence that clever women are more likely than the general population to remain faithful.

The patterns were uncovered by Dr Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science in a paper published in the March edition of the journal Social Psychology Quarterly.

As part of the study he analysed two major US surveys which ascertained the social attitudes and IQs of thousands of teenagers and adults.

He concluded: "As the empirical analysis ... shows, more intelligent men are more likely to value monogamy and sexual exclusivity than less intelligent men."

Dr Kanazawa claims that the correlation between intelligence and monogamy in men has its origins in evolutionary development.

Sexual exclusivity is an "evolutionary novel" quality that would have been of little benefit to early man, who was programmed to be promiscuous, he argues.

The modern world no longer confers such an evolutionary advantage to men who have several sexual partners - but it is only intelligent men are able to shed the psychological baggage of their species and adopt new modes of behaviour

Other "evolutionary novel" qualities that are more common among people of higher intelligence include liberalism and atheism, his study indicated.

Journal 3: Analyzing Men's and Women's Magazines

For this journal, you will analyze a magazine geared toward the opposite sex. Therefore, men will analyze a mainstream women's magazine and women will analyze a mainstream men's magazine. Your task is to analyze the magazine's messaging about gender. With features, such as "what he really thinks of one-night stands" (Glamour) or "the dangers of your girlfriend's lesbian curiosity" (Details), these magazines are very influential in defining expectations of American men and women. When examining your magazine, consider how it portrays both genders, either positively or negatively. Also, does anything in the magazine confirm your preconceptions about the opposite sex? Does anything surprise you? Overall, how is your gender portrayed? Finally, does this magazine do a service or disservice to its readers in the way it presents gender? Why or why not?

For women to examine:
Men's Health
Details
FHM
Esquire
Men's Journal
Instinct
GQ
Maxim

For men to examine:
Vogue
Marie Claire
Elle
Allure
Glamour
Curve
Harper's Bazaar
Cosmopolitan

You may examine either the print or online editions of a magazine, though print editions are preferable.

Due: Wednesday, Mar. 10

Week 6

A deranged person is supposed to have
the strength of ten men. I have the strength
of one small boy—with polio.

—Wood Allen, Shadows and Fog

Week 6
M 3.1
READ: CR—“The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” by Theodore B. Olson, “Same-Sex Marriage: ‘A Basic Civil Right’”
IN-CLASS: Lecture—“Gender Politics on Film”

W 3.3
READ: CR—“Same-Sex Marriage: Losing a Battle, Winning the War” by Andrew Cohen, “Stupidity, Gay Marriage, and the Evolution of Religion” by Dan Agin, “Why I Fought for the Right to Say ‘I Do’” by Greta Christina; GL, p. 1-43
IN-CLASS: Autobiographical essay
DUE: Journal 2

UPCOMING:

Week 7

M 3.8
READ: CR—“Why One Queer Person Is Not Celebrating California's Historic Gay Marriage Decision” by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, “Preserve Traditional Marriage for Benefit of Future Generations” by Roger Crouse; GL, p. 44-94
IN-CLASS: Reading discussion; Preview—Persuasive essay

W 3.10
READ: CR—“The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage” by Sam Shulman, “We Don't Need Gay Marriage” by Mark Vernon, “Sex and Consequences” by Peter Wood; GL, p. 95-143; eR—“The Sanctity of Marriage” from This American Life
IN-CLASS: Reading discussion
DUE: Journal 3