Women and children first? Not always
LONDON — So much for women and children first.
The phrase and its grave implications about who to save first in a catastrophe are rooted in the shipwrecks of centuries past and popularized by Hollywood’s treatment of the Titanic disaster. It is getting another airing at a time when, in many societies, women are expected to do most everything men do. Experts say the unwritten law of the sea is a Hollywood-fed myth and a relic of Victorian-era chivalry.
At the center of this round of questions is the prisoners-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas in November that prioritized releasing women and children after negotiators agreed that mothers and their children should not be separated. Israelis are overwhelmingly supportive of this approach. But it leaves behind elderly and injured men during the most chaotic phase of the war, a result that has angered some families. On Friday, Israel said the army had mistakenly killed three of the remaining hostages, all men.
“To say ‘women and children’ in the 21st century — as if families can be whole without the fathers, as if children that have come back with their fathers still there can in any way start recovering from the trauma — is unthinkable,” Sharone Lifshitz, whose mother was freed in October and whose 83-year-old father, Oded, remains in captivity, told The Associated Press.
Of about 240 people who were kidnapped during Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage, 86 Israelis were released. Seventeen Thai men also were let go. That left 119 men — many of them injured or elderly — and 17 women and children as hostages in Gaza.
In a private meeting on Dec. 5, Israeli media reported, the
families of the remaining captives ripped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for agreeing to prioritize women and children — then resuming Israel’s bombardment of Gaza with no known plans to negotiate the release of anyone else.
“You think the men are strong? It’s too hard for them. Bring them all home,” Sharon Cunio, whose husband, David, and other family members are still hostages, told Netanyahu and Israel’s war cabinet,
according to local media.
WHAT’S BEHIND THE NOTION?
“Children first” seems to be a widely agreed-upon crisis action plan, whether it’s a rescue from a natural disaster or a hostage-taking. And women and children generally pay an outsized price in crises: The death toll from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza tops 18,700 — around two-thirds of them women and children.
But other standards, such as
women before men, can lead to fraught judgments about whose lives are most valuable — and reflect the human impulse to sort each other.
Experts say the choice nowadays often is to save the most vulnerable first, which would include children but also older people and those who are sick and the injured, no matter their gender. When everyone can’t be rescued at once, the critical factors seem to be the exercise of leadership and all players making a choice — typically between themselves and others.
Other dynamics weigh heavily, such as how much time people have before a ship sinks as well as the societal and cultural norms of the people involved.
“What is considered ‘valuable’ is determined by the actors controlling the situation,” says Edward Galea, a professor at the University of Greenwich who specializes in evacuation and human behavior. In a fire or other disaster, it’s those directly involved — say, a ship captain or passengers. In a hostage situation, he says, “it’s external actors” — in the case of the Gaza war, it’s intense politics and a watching world.
“For example, it could be considered valuable to be seen to attempt to release the most vulnerable first or to release women and children first or to be gender and age neutral,” Galea said in an email. There’s no law or regulation that says women and children must be saved first; rather, he’s said, it’s a tradition ingrained by Hollywood.
In real time, human behavior in catastrophes often plays out more like every person for themselves, according to experts who have studied the dynamics. There’s often no time to consider who belongs to which group, or to fight over terms as in a wartime hostage release. Leadership is key; someone has to go first.
In Italy in 2012, that someone was Francesco Schettino, the captain of the luxury liner Costa Concordia who slammed it into a reef, capsizing off the Tuscan island of Giglio. Thirty-two people died.
Schettino is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated.