WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 If you ever find yourself abandoning a sinking 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:04.040 ship in the middle of the ocean, your chances 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:06.719 of surviving as a man are, well, they're nearly 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:09.960 double that of a woman. pretty wild to think 00:00:09.960 --> 00:00:12.339 about. Right. I mean, wait a minute. Does an 00:00:12.339 --> 00:00:15.359 ancient, unbreakable maritime law dictate that 00:00:15.359 --> 00:00:17.879 the crew absolutely has to save the women and 00:00:17.879 --> 00:00:20.199 children first? That's definitely what the movie's 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:23.120 telling. Exactly. But welcome to this deep dive 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:25.660 where we are going to look into that. Today, 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:28.280 we have a really fascinating mission for you. 00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:31.339 We're taking a massive Wikipedia article that 00:00:31.339 --> 00:00:35.060 chronicles the history, the real world applications, 00:00:35.079 --> 00:00:38.100 and honestly, the grim statistical realities. 00:00:38.149 --> 00:00:40.969 of this universally recognized command. Yeah, 00:00:40.969 --> 00:00:42.969 and we're really putting this myth to the test 00:00:42.969 --> 00:00:45.549 today. Because that famous doctrine you've heard 00:00:45.549 --> 00:00:48.429 shouted in literally every blockbuster disaster 00:00:48.429 --> 00:00:51.409 movie, it is not a law at all. I mean, its historical 00:00:51.409 --> 00:00:54.630 application is fiercely inconsistent. And the 00:00:54.630 --> 00:00:56.869 actual data regarding who makes it into a lifeboat 00:00:56.869 --> 00:00:59.450 and who gets left behind, well, it's going to 00:00:59.450 --> 00:01:01.329 completely shatter your assumptions about human 00:01:01.329 --> 00:01:03.869 nature in a crisis. It really is. It's the ultimate 00:01:03.869 --> 00:01:06.870 collision between our idealized morality and 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:09.530 our, you know, primal survival instincts. If 00:01:09.530 --> 00:01:11.189 you take a look at the backdrop behind me today, 00:01:11.609 --> 00:01:13.810 you'll see we've brought up these faded maritime 00:01:13.810 --> 00:01:18.250 star charts and naval blueprints just to kind 00:01:18.250 --> 00:01:20.209 of set the mood for you. I love the aesthetic, 00:01:20.250 --> 00:01:23.439 by the way. Very nautical. Thanks, yeah. In this 00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:25.739 deep dive, we're going completely below deck. 00:01:26.180 --> 00:01:28.879 We're stripping away the Victorian romanticism 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:31.620 that always surrounds shipwrecks to examine the 00:01:31.620 --> 00:01:34.920 cold, hard, and honestly, often terrifying mechanisms 00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:37.500 of human behavior in those absolute ultimate 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:39.939 moments of panic. Okay, let's unpack this. Because 00:01:39.939 --> 00:01:42.780 to understand the famous disasters we all think 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:45.620 we know so well, we have to trace this idea back 00:01:45.620 --> 00:01:48.700 to its actual origin point, right? Back in the 00:01:48.700 --> 00:01:50.480 19th century. Yeah, we have to go back to May 00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:53.599 of 1840. Right. American vessel called the Poland. 00:01:54.140 --> 00:01:56.480 And a detail that stands out immediately in the 00:01:56.480 --> 00:01:58.400 historical record, and I found this super interesting, 00:01:58.620 --> 00:02:00.959 is that this wasn't even a military ship with 00:02:00.959 --> 00:02:03.900 like rigid discipline. It was a packet ship. 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:07.120 Which is a huge distinction. It is. For anyone 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.199 unfamiliar with 19th century maritime terms, 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:13.199 a packet ship was essentially the ocean going 00:02:13.199 --> 00:02:15.979 equivalent of a mail truck. Like a mail truck 00:02:15.979 --> 00:02:18.479 that also carried paying passengers, just running 00:02:18.479 --> 00:02:20.819 scheduled routes between North America and Europe. 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:23.659 Exactly. So the Poland was en route from New 00:02:23.659 --> 00:02:26.219 York to Le Havre, France, when it was suddenly 00:02:26.219 --> 00:02:29.340 struck by lightning. And a fire breaks out deep 00:02:29.340 --> 00:02:31.599 in the cargo hold. Which is basically a worst 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:34.599 case scenario. Oh, absolutely. But this isn't 00:02:34.599 --> 00:02:37.120 an immediate catastrophic sinking where the ship 00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:39.639 just plunges beneath the waves in minutes. It's 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:42.500 more of an agonizingly slow burning realization 00:02:42.500 --> 00:02:44.639 of extreme danger. Right. They have time to think 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:47.520 about it. Yeah. The captain assesses the fire, 00:02:47.939 --> 00:02:50.620 realizes the ship is likely doomed, and he prepares 00:02:50.620 --> 00:02:53.319 the passengers for the grim possibility of taking 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:55.860 to the small lifeboats. But according to the 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:57.599 historical accounts, the captain didn't even 00:02:57.599 --> 00:02:59.789 issue the famous order. Wait, really? The captain 00:02:59.789 --> 00:03:02.370 didn't say it? Nope. A French passenger simply 00:03:02.370 --> 00:03:05.069 offered a suggestion. He told the group, let 00:03:05.069 --> 00:03:06.969 us take care of the women and children first. 00:03:07.169 --> 00:03:09.650 Wow. So it was a completely civilian suggestion? 00:03:09.810 --> 00:03:12.189 Entirely civilian. Driven by the social etiquette 00:03:12.189 --> 00:03:15.289 of the era, rather than any sort of naval handbook. 00:03:15.849 --> 00:03:17.789 And it worked, because like you said, it was 00:03:17.789 --> 00:03:20.810 a precautionary orderly situation. The passengers 00:03:20.810 --> 00:03:23.969 agreed, and they safely evacuated the women, 00:03:24.189 --> 00:03:26.469 the children, and a few male passengers into 00:03:26.469 --> 00:03:28.870 the ship's longboat. while the rest of the men 00:03:28.870 --> 00:03:31.090 in the crew just stayed aboard the burning deck 00:03:31.090 --> 00:03:33.889 to fight the blaze, you know, just buying time. 00:03:34.189 --> 00:03:37.150 That slow, methodical nature of the Poland Fire 00:03:37.150 --> 00:03:40.110 is basically what allowed this chivalric ideal 00:03:40.110 --> 00:03:42.889 to play out without the pressure of total absolute 00:03:42.889 --> 00:03:46.150 panic. Yeah, but what happens next is what truly 00:03:46.150 --> 00:03:49.349 cements the phrase in history. One of the male 00:03:49.349 --> 00:03:52.310 passengers who evacuated into that longboat was 00:03:52.310 --> 00:03:55.439 a man named J .H. Buckingham. Ooh, the journalist. 00:03:55.659 --> 00:03:57.099 Right, he wasn't just any passenger, he was a 00:03:57.099 --> 00:03:59.960 journalist from Boston. So he survives, and he 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:02.939 writes this incredibly vivid, dramatic account 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:05.759 of the noble chivalry displayed aboard the Poland. 00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:07.259 Which is exactly what people wanted to read. 00:04:07.340 --> 00:04:09.319 Totally. It gets published in the Boston Courier. 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:11.520 Then he gets picked up across the Atlantic by 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:14.020 the Times in London. It even gets reprinted in 00:04:14.020 --> 00:04:17.060 a book published that very same year. It's essentially 00:04:17.060 --> 00:04:20.199 19th century viral media. That's exactly what 00:04:20.199 --> 00:04:22.540 it is. Buckingham's article transformed this 00:04:22.540 --> 00:04:25.319 localized moment of politeness into a global 00:04:25.319 --> 00:04:28.860 media sensation. It captured the public imagination 00:04:28.860 --> 00:04:31.699 so intensely that it started bleeding right into 00:04:31.699 --> 00:04:36.600 fiction. Like 20 years later in 1860, the novelist 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:39.019 William Douglas O 'Connor wrote a book called 00:04:38.829 --> 00:04:41.949 Herrington, a story of true love. Yeah that's 00:04:41.949 --> 00:04:44.670 a wild book. It really is. He writes this fictional 00:04:44.670 --> 00:04:46.610 Captain Herrington who goes down with his ship 00:04:46.610 --> 00:04:49.029 standing on the deck holding a heavy wooden hand 00:04:49.029 --> 00:04:51.879 spike. And he's violently threatening to smash 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:54.319 the skull of any man who dares touch a lifeboat 00:04:54.319 --> 00:04:56.399 before the women and children are safe. Which 00:04:56.399 --> 00:04:58.819 perfectly demonstrates how popular culture was 00:04:58.819 --> 00:05:01.459 actively fusing women and children first with 00:05:01.459 --> 00:05:03.560 that other great maritime myth, you know, that 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:05.540 the captain goes down with the ship. Right, combining 00:05:05.540 --> 00:05:07.540 all the dramatic tropes. Exactly. The public 00:05:07.540 --> 00:05:10.519 just devoured this romanticized fiction. And 00:05:10.519 --> 00:05:12.600 that fictional romance suddenly appeared as a 00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:15.860 terrifying historical reality in 1852 during 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.500 the sinking of the Royal Navy troop ship, HMS 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:22.029 Birkenhead. The famous Birkenhead drill, which 00:05:22.029 --> 00:05:24.370 really became the gold standard for Stoicism. 00:05:24.569 --> 00:05:27.269 It really did. So the Birkenhead strikes uncharted 00:05:27.269 --> 00:05:29.589 rocks off the coast of South Africa and begins 00:05:29.589 --> 00:05:32.750 to rapidly sink. The captain, Robert Salmond, 00:05:33.110 --> 00:05:35.509 gives the order and the soldiers aboard demonstrate 00:05:35.509 --> 00:05:38.189 a terrifying level of discipline. Like genuinely 00:05:38.189 --> 00:05:40.790 hard to comprehend. Yeah. 60 men are ordered 00:05:40.790 --> 00:05:43.670 to man the chain pumps. For those unfamiliar 00:05:43.670 --> 00:05:46.470 with mid -century naval engineering, these were 00:05:46.470 --> 00:05:49.779 massive physically exhausting manual cranks used 00:05:49.779 --> 00:05:52.240 to literally pump rising ocean water out of the 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:55.879 hull. Backbreaking work. Oh, incredibly. And 00:05:55.879 --> 00:05:57.899 another 60 men are assigned to the tackles of 00:05:57.899 --> 00:06:00.120 the lifeboats, operating the heavy ropes and 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:02.160 pulley systems required to lower the boats down 00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:03.680 the side of the hull. And then the rest of the 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:05.300 soldiers are ordered to assemble on the poop 00:06:05.300 --> 00:06:07.629 deck. Which, I know, despite the funny name, 00:06:07.790 --> 00:06:10.089 is just the raised deck at the very rear of the 00:06:10.089 --> 00:06:12.629 ship. They're ordered to march the back and simply 00:06:12.629 --> 00:06:15.009 stand there in formation. Just wait. Yeah, just 00:06:15.009 --> 00:06:17.290 standing there. The sheer weight of hundreds 00:06:17.290 --> 00:06:19.990 of men standing at the rear was an attempt to 00:06:19.990 --> 00:06:22.670 act as a counterweight, to try and raise the 00:06:22.670 --> 00:06:25.089 sinking forward part of the ship out of the water. 00:06:25.339 --> 00:06:28.259 They literally stood at attention while the women 00:06:28.259 --> 00:06:30.519 and children were lowered away safely in the 00:06:30.519 --> 00:06:33.079 ship's cutter, which is just a small road boat 00:06:33.079 --> 00:06:36.360 used for transfers. They stood in perfect military 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:39.160 formation as the ship sank beneath their feet. 00:06:39.579 --> 00:06:42.759 I mean, the imagery is so powerful, so unbelievably 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:45.240 disciplined, that it became a defining legend 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:47.800 of the British Empire. It's cinematic. Yeah. 00:06:48.180 --> 00:06:50.759 Rudyard Kipling even immortalized it in his 1893 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:53.939 poem, Soldier and Sailor 2. But, you know, hearing 00:06:53.939 --> 00:06:56.300 this timeline, the mechanism behind the myth 00:06:56.300 --> 00:06:59.420 becomes painfully obvious. To me, these early 00:06:59.420 --> 00:07:02.160 Victorian stories operate exactly like our modern 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:04.079 superhero movies. That's a great way to put it. 00:07:04.379 --> 00:07:06.839 Right. Like, we want to believe that when a city 00:07:06.839 --> 00:07:09.399 is falling apart, someone with an unshakable 00:07:09.399 --> 00:07:11.879 moral compass will hold up the collapsing building 00:07:11.879 --> 00:07:15.480 so the innocent can escape. It is a highly sanitized 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:18.180 narrative that society desperately needs to believe 00:07:18.180 --> 00:07:20.740 about human nature. But looking at the industrial 00:07:20.740 --> 00:07:22.959 context of the era, I really have to push back 00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:26.040 on the nobility of it all. This intense focus 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:28.680 on chivalry feels like an elaborate cultural 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:32.019 band -aid. Was the insistence on this moral code 00:07:32.019 --> 00:07:34.920 really just a way to cover up the fact that maritime 00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:38.180 safety regulations of the 19th century were mathematically 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:40.959 guaranteeing mass casualties? If we connect this 00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:43.639 to the bigger picture, Your assessment of the 00:07:43.639 --> 00:07:46.660 industrial reality is completely accurate. During 00:07:46.660 --> 00:07:49.639 the 19th and early 20th centuries, shipping companies 00:07:49.639 --> 00:07:52.300 simply refused to outfit their vessels with enough 00:07:52.300 --> 00:07:55.060 lifeboats to save everyone on board. Which is 00:07:55.060 --> 00:07:58.019 just so mind -boggling today. It is. To understand 00:07:58.019 --> 00:08:00.759 the sheer scale of this institutionalized negligence, 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:04.040 we can look at a debate from 1870. The UK Board 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:05.899 of Trade was questioned in the House of Commons 00:08:05.899 --> 00:08:08.160 regarding the sinking of a paddle steamer called 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:11.800 the Normandy. George Shalefeff Speaking on behalf 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.319 of the board, actively argued against passing 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:16.439 laws that would require passenger steamers to 00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:18.819 carry enough lifeboats for everyone. Wait, he 00:08:18.819 --> 00:08:21.060 argued against saving lives? Like, what was the 00:08:21.060 --> 00:08:23.220 mechanical or economic justification for that? 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:26.519 Well, he claimed that adding more lifeboats would, 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:29.779 quote, encumber the decks and rather add to the 00:08:29.779 --> 00:08:32.820 danger than detract from it. Wow. And sadly, 00:08:33.179 --> 00:08:35.840 there is a twisted economic logic to his argument 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:38.929 based on shipbuilding of the era. Putting dozens 00:08:38.929 --> 00:08:41.110 of heavy wooden lifeboats on the top deck of 00:08:41.110 --> 00:08:43.909 a narrow steamer makes the vessel dangerously 00:08:43.909 --> 00:08:46.490 top -heavy and prone to capsizing. Okay, I see 00:08:46.490 --> 00:08:49.610 the physics of it, but still. Yeah, but furthermore, 00:08:49.929 --> 00:08:52.429 first -class passengers paid a premium for open, 00:08:52.769 --> 00:08:55.269 unobstructed promenade decks to take their afternoon 00:08:55.269 --> 00:08:58.129 walks. Cluttering those high -paying spaces with 00:08:58.129 --> 00:09:00.289 lifeboats was just bad for business. So it was 00:09:00.289 --> 00:09:03.370 about the view. Pretty much. Add to that the 00:09:03.370 --> 00:09:05.610 fact that maritime legislation was based entirely 00:09:05.610 --> 00:09:07.950 on the cubic tonnage of the vessel, which is 00:09:07.950 --> 00:09:10.309 a holdover from when ships primarily moved cargo, 00:09:10.690 --> 00:09:13.570 not tourists, and the laws completely ignored 00:09:13.570 --> 00:09:16.059 the actual human passenger count. So the industry 00:09:16.059 --> 00:09:18.120 was essentially operating like an airline that 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:20.559 legally overbooks a flight by hundreds of seats, 00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:23.039 realizes the plane is going to crash, and then 00:09:23.039 --> 00:09:26.179 relies on a poem to explain why half the passengers 00:09:26.179 --> 00:09:29.480 have to stay behind and die. The Victorian commentator 00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:32.080 celebrated women and children first as the ancient 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.779 chivalry of the sea handed down through the bloodline. 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:38.220 But underneath the poetry, it was just a manufactured 00:09:38.220 --> 00:09:41.000 code of conduct designed to manage a death toll 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:44.200 created by corporate cost cutting. a coping mechanism 00:09:44.200 --> 00:09:46.779 for systemic failure. And that brings us to the 00:09:46.779 --> 00:09:49.220 predictable consequences of that failure. When 00:09:49.220 --> 00:09:51.559 we strip away the orderly military discipline 00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:53.480 of the Birkenhead, we're left with the horrifying 00:09:53.480 --> 00:09:56.139 reality of what happens when the panic of limited 00:09:56.139 --> 00:09:59.049 survival resources actually sets in. Right, which 00:09:59.049 --> 00:10:01.830 perfectly frames the disaster of the French liner 00:10:01.830 --> 00:10:04.870 La Bourgogne in 1898. If the Birkenhead is the 00:10:04.870 --> 00:10:07.909 romantic ideal, La Bourgogne is the dark, brutal 00:10:07.909 --> 00:10:10.570 mirror. Yeah, it's horrific. When that ship began 00:10:10.570 --> 00:10:13.990 to sink, the veneer of chivalry completely evaporated 00:10:13.990 --> 00:10:16.610 under the pressure of survival. Out of 200 women 00:10:16.610 --> 00:10:20.009 on board, 199 died. And out of all the children 00:10:20.009 --> 00:10:23.090 on the ship, not a single one survived. The statistics 00:10:23.090 --> 00:10:25.629 reflect an environment of absolute chaos and 00:10:25.629 --> 00:10:29.039 brutal self -preservation. The crewmen, the very 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:31.460 individuals employed to maintain order and safely 00:10:31.460 --> 00:10:34.019 evacuate the passengers, they realized the severe 00:10:34.019 --> 00:10:36.000 shortage of lifeboats and just took them for 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.120 themselves. Just left the passengers behind. 00:10:38.279 --> 00:10:40.340 Yeah, they possess the technical knowledge to 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:42.960 operate the complex pulleys and tackles, and 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:45.200 they use that advantage exclusively for their 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:48.519 own survival. And it gets worse. As they were 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:51.019 launching the boats, the crewmen actively use 00:10:51.019 --> 00:10:54.120 oars and knives to beat and stab passengers who 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:56.269 were desperately trying to climb aboard. Put 00:10:56.269 --> 00:10:59.049 yourself on that slanted freezing deck for a 00:10:59.049 --> 00:11:01.549 second. Think about that. You are standing there 00:11:01.549 --> 00:11:04.289 with your family as the water rises. You are 00:11:04.289 --> 00:11:07.169 relying on this grand unwritten moral toad you've 00:11:07.169 --> 00:11:08.970 read about in the newspapers to protect you. 00:11:09.269 --> 00:11:12.029 And instead, the uniformed crew is actively using 00:11:12.029 --> 00:11:14.610 weapons against you to secure their own seats 00:11:14.610 --> 00:11:17.090 in the only available boats. It's terrifying. 00:11:17.129 --> 00:11:19.889 It exposes the terrifying fragility of our social 00:11:19.889 --> 00:11:22.330 contracts. When the water reaches your boots 00:11:22.330 --> 00:11:24.990 and there are 10 people for every one seat, the 00:11:24.990 --> 00:11:27.850 illusion of chivalry just shatters it really 00:11:27.850 --> 00:11:31.049 does and this stark realization about human panic 00:11:31.049 --> 00:11:33.570 combined with the fatal ambiguity of unwritten 00:11:33.570 --> 00:11:36.370 rules leads us directly into the most famous 00:11:36.370 --> 00:11:38.570 application of the doctrine in human history 00:11:38.570 --> 00:11:42.049 right the sinking of the rms titanic in 1912 00:11:42.250 --> 00:11:45.169 The Titanic is the ultimate symbol of this entire 00:11:45.169 --> 00:11:47.330 concept. I mean, we all know the broad strokes 00:11:47.330 --> 00:11:49.669 of the tragedy, but looking at the mechanical 00:11:49.669 --> 00:11:52.009 breakdown of the evacuation that night reveals 00:11:52.009 --> 00:11:55.549 a terrifying study in deadly semantics. Yeah, 00:11:55.789 --> 00:11:58.309 words really matter here. When the Titanic struck 00:11:58.309 --> 00:12:00.649 the iceberg and Captain Edward J. Smith realized 00:12:00.649 --> 00:12:03.129 the ship was mathematically doomed, he gave a 00:12:03.129 --> 00:12:05.690 verbal order to his officers. He told them, put 00:12:05.690 --> 00:12:08.100 the women and children in and lower away. Here's 00:12:08.100 --> 00:12:10.360 where it gets really interesting because that 00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:12.960 single vaguely worded sentence from the captain 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:15.480 caused a massive misinterpretation on the boat 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:17.919 deck, resulting in wildly different survival 00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:19.860 rates depending on which side of the ship you 00:12:19.860 --> 00:12:22.340 happen to be standing on. You have two different 00:12:22.340 --> 00:12:25.200 officers managing the lifeboats. First officer 00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:27.419 William McMaster Murdoch takes the captain's 00:12:27.419 --> 00:12:31.139 order to mean women and children first. His operational 00:12:31.139 --> 00:12:34.169 logic is simple, right? You load all the women 00:12:34.169 --> 00:12:36.509 and children standing in the vicinity, and if 00:12:36.509 --> 00:12:38.870 there are still empty seats in that lifeboat, 00:12:39.289 --> 00:12:41.750 you allow men on board to maximize the capacity 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:44.110 of the boat before dropping it into the ocean. 00:12:44.330 --> 00:12:46.710 Makes perfect sense. Yeah. But on the other side 00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:49.210 of the ship... Second Officer Charles Lightoller 00:12:49.210 --> 00:12:51.710 interprets the exact same sentence to mean women 00:12:51.710 --> 00:12:55.029 and children only. Only? Yes. And Lightoller's 00:12:55.029 --> 00:12:57.610 adherence to his interpretation was incredibly 00:12:57.610 --> 00:13:00.429 rigid. He lowered lifeboats into the freezing 00:13:00.429 --> 00:13:03.110 Atlantic Ocean with empty seats rather than allowing 00:13:03.110 --> 00:13:05.250 any men to step aboard to fill them. Unbelievable. 00:13:05.549 --> 00:13:08.070 If a boat holding 60 people only had 40 women 00:13:08.070 --> 00:13:10.389 and children nearby, Lightoller sent it down 00:13:10.389 --> 00:13:13.620 with 20 empty seats. He actively prevented men 00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:16.039 from boarding, basically standing as a real -life 00:13:16.039 --> 00:13:18.019 version of that fictional Captain Harrington. 00:13:18.539 --> 00:13:20.799 Because he was so fiercely committed to preserving 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:24.080 this unofficial, idealized code, he was willing 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:27.179 to let viable, life -saving seats go to the bottom 00:13:27.179 --> 00:13:30.120 of the ocean. The mathematical outcome of that 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:33.419 cognitive dissonance is just staggering. What 00:13:33.419 --> 00:13:35.559 did the final statistics look like? Well, the 00:13:35.559 --> 00:13:38.519 numbers show a massive gender disparity dictated 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:41.720 by this unwritten rule. 74 % of the women on 00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:44.779 board the Titanic were saved, 52 % of the children 00:13:44.779 --> 00:13:47.740 were saved, but only 20 % of the men survived. 00:13:47.799 --> 00:13:50.379 Wow. And the tragedy compounded for the men who 00:13:50.379 --> 00:13:52.600 did make it, because the narrative of the Birkenhead 00:13:52.600 --> 00:13:56.679 was so culturally dominant. This toxic idea that 00:13:56.679 --> 00:14:00.879 a real man bravely accepts drowning society mercilessly 00:14:00.879 --> 00:14:03.639 punished male survivors. J. Bruce Esme, the White 00:14:03.639 --> 00:14:05.639 Star Line official, is the prime example of that. 00:14:05.740 --> 00:14:08.000 He helped load boats for hours and then stepped 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:10.100 into a lifeboat at the very last minute when 00:14:10.100 --> 00:14:12.519 there were no other passengers nearby. He filled 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:14.700 an otherwise empty seat, but he was prominently 00:14:14.700 --> 00:14:16.720 branded as a coward by the press. Ruined his 00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:19.279 life. He lived the rest of his life in total 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:22.580 social exile. The cultural pressure of this unwritten 00:14:22.580 --> 00:14:25.539 rule was so intense that survival itself became 00:14:25.539 --> 00:14:28.419 a badge of shame for men. The Titanic sinking 00:14:28.419 --> 00:14:30.899 served as an absolute flashpoint for societal 00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:34.080 expectations. It forced a global conversation 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:37.179 about gender roles, rights and the true cost 00:14:37.179 --> 00:14:39.870 of chivalry. And to understand how polarizing 00:14:39.870 --> 00:14:42.250 this doctrine had become, we can look at the 00:14:42.250 --> 00:14:45.470 immediate cultural friction it caused. In 1913, 00:14:45.629 --> 00:14:48.350 the year after the Titanic sank, an author named 00:14:48.350 --> 00:14:50.730 Ernest Bax published a book called The Fraud 00:14:50.730 --> 00:14:52.669 of Feminism. And we should pause here to make 00:14:52.669 --> 00:14:54.610 something incredibly clear to you, the listener. 00:14:54.990 --> 00:14:57.889 We are absolutely not taking a side on this politically 00:14:57.889 --> 00:14:59.690 charged sentiment. Oh, right. Definitely not. 00:14:59.830 --> 00:15:01.870 We are not endorsing these viewpoints at all. 00:15:02.029 --> 00:15:04.149 We are simply reporting it to show how polarizing 00:15:04.149 --> 00:15:06.649 this unofficial doctrine had become in the cultural 00:15:06.649 --> 00:15:09.210 zeitgeist. immediately after the Titanic sank. 00:15:09.750 --> 00:15:12.149 Exactly. We just want to convey the ideas contained 00:15:12.149 --> 00:15:15.090 in the original source material. So Backus used 00:15:15.090 --> 00:15:17.889 the Titanic disaster as a core argument describing 00:15:17.889 --> 00:15:21.269 this concept of chivalry as, quote, the deprivation, 00:15:21.490 --> 00:15:23.909 the robbery from men of the most elementary personal 00:15:23.909 --> 00:15:26.190 rights in order to endow women with privileges 00:15:26.190 --> 00:15:28.769 at the expense of men. He heavily criticized 00:15:28.769 --> 00:15:31.519 the outcome of the sinking. It was the very intense 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:33.799 reaction. Seeing quotes like that proves that 00:15:33.799 --> 00:15:36.120 immediately after the Titanic, this supposedly 00:15:36.120 --> 00:15:39.440 universal code was already fracturing the cultural 00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:42.100 zeitgeist. It wasn't universally beloved, it 00:15:42.100 --> 00:15:45.000 was sparking intense, bitter debate about the 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:48.139 value of a human life based on gender. This raises 00:15:48.139 --> 00:15:50.750 an important question. How does rigid adherence 00:15:50.750 --> 00:15:53.549 to an emotionally driven rule fundamentally undermine 00:15:53.549 --> 00:15:55.970 the ultimate goal of an evacuation? Right. I 00:15:55.970 --> 00:15:57.850 mean, if the objective is to save as many human 00:15:57.850 --> 00:16:00.889 beings as possible, Leithoeller's strict interpretation 00:16:00.889 --> 00:16:04.049 of women and children only mathematically failed. 00:16:04.909 --> 00:16:07.169 He prioritized the preservation of a Victorian 00:16:07.169 --> 00:16:10.690 ideal over the preservation of human life, literally 00:16:10.690 --> 00:16:13.230 sending empty wooden seats to the ocean floor. 00:16:13.450 --> 00:16:15.389 Which brings us to the ultimate reckoning of 00:16:15.389 --> 00:16:18.480 this deep dive. You have heard the romantic legend 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:21.039 of the Birkenhead and the horrifying breakdown 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:23.980 of order on La Bregone and the fatal miscommunications 00:16:23.980 --> 00:16:27.139 of the Titanic. But individual stories, no matter 00:16:27.139 --> 00:16:29.179 how famous, they don't give us the whole picture. 00:16:29.340 --> 00:16:31.720 No, they don't. What happens when we zoom out, 00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:34.360 strip away the anecdotes and look at the aggregated 00:16:34.360 --> 00:16:37.379 math of maritime disasters across history? Well, 00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:40.740 the math completely destroys the myth. In 2012, 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:43.659 economists at Uppsala University in Sweden released 00:16:43.659 --> 00:16:46.639 a groundbreaking comprehensive study. They didn't 00:16:46.639 --> 00:16:48.840 just look at one or two famous British ships. 00:16:49.259 --> 00:16:52.240 They analyzed the survival rates of over 15 ,000 00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:55.340 people across 18 different maritime disasters. 00:16:55.779 --> 00:16:58.399 That is a massive data set. It is. This spanned 00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:00.919 over a century and included ships from various 00:17:00.919 --> 00:17:03.320 nationalities, which really removed any specific 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:06.019 cultural bias from the data. Their conclusion 00:17:06.019 --> 00:17:08.599 was definitive. The women and children first 00:17:08.599 --> 00:17:10.940 rule is largely a total miss. And the actual 00:17:10.940 --> 00:17:13.420 survival rates completely invert the Hollywood 00:17:13.420 --> 00:17:16.160 narrative. Entirely. In their massive sample 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:19.900 size, the survival rate was 34 .5 % for men compared 00:17:19.900 --> 00:17:23.299 to just 17 .8 % for women. Wait, really? So men 00:17:23.299 --> 00:17:26.720 had a nearly 2 to 1 survival advantage in shipwrecks? 00:17:27.140 --> 00:17:31.589 Yes. It's a devastating statistic that completely 00:17:31.589 --> 00:17:35.089 unravels the Buckingham article from 1840. Furthermore, 00:17:35.349 --> 00:17:37.450 the Upsala researchers concluded that true members 00:17:37.450 --> 00:17:40.069 are significantly more likely to survive than 00:17:40.069 --> 00:17:51.319 passengers. You know, the crew who know the layout, 00:17:51.500 --> 00:17:53.099 who know how to release the lifeboats, who have 00:17:53.099 --> 00:17:55.579 physical access to the upper decks, they use 00:17:55.579 --> 00:17:57.779 that knowledge to save themselves. It's dark, 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.299 but it makes sense. It is a grim reflection of 00:18:00.299 --> 00:18:02.319 human nature prioritizing self -preservation 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:05.779 above all else. So if this chivalric code is 00:18:05.779 --> 00:18:08.240 a mathematical fiction backed by almost zero 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:10.849 historical data, What is the actual protocol 00:18:10.849 --> 00:18:13.549 today? Like if you step onto a massive cruise 00:18:13.549 --> 00:18:16.269 ship tomorrow, what rule is legally in place 00:18:16.269 --> 00:18:18.829 to manage an evacuation? You might be surprised 00:18:18.829 --> 00:18:21.230 to learn that there is absolutely zero legal 00:18:21.230 --> 00:18:24.150 basis for women and children first in international 00:18:24.150 --> 00:18:27.329 maritime law. None at all. None. It does not 00:18:27.329 --> 00:18:30.509 exist in any modern statute. In modern evacuations, 00:18:30.829 --> 00:18:33.569 the protocol is based on practicality, not poetry. 00:18:33.849 --> 00:18:38.029 In a 2012 BBC interview, maritime expert Robert 00:18:38.029 --> 00:18:40.990 Ashdown clarified the modern standard. Today, 00:18:41.190 --> 00:18:43.210 crew members are trained to help the most vulnerable 00:18:43.210 --> 00:18:45.750 people escape first. Okay, that makes a lot more 00:18:45.750 --> 00:18:48.089 sense. Right. That typically means prioritizing 00:18:48.089 --> 00:18:50.970 the injured, the elderly, or the very young completely 00:18:50.970 --> 00:18:53.450 regardless of gender. It is entirely based on 00:18:53.450 --> 00:18:56.200 physical mobility and acute need. A healthy, 00:18:56.380 --> 00:18:58.440 able -bodied woman is expected to manage her 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:01.079 own evacuation, while the crew focuses their 00:19:01.079 --> 00:19:03.880 resources on a disabled passenger or an elderly 00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:05.940 man who physically cannot navigate the stairs. 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:09.539 It is a logical, needs -based approach. Exactly. 00:19:09.839 --> 00:19:12.160 But even with all this data from Uppsala University, 00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:14.960 even with modern international maritime law clearly 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:17.720 pivoting to a logic -based system, the cultural 00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:20.799 lingering of this 19th century phrase is astonishing. 00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:23.099 The myth is incredibly sticky. I mean, despite 00:19:23.099 --> 00:19:25.619 the 2012 study proving it false, The Boy Scouts 00:19:25.619 --> 00:19:27.940 of America Sea Scouting Program kept women and 00:19:27.940 --> 00:19:31.059 children first as the motto of the sea and embedded 00:19:31.059 --> 00:19:33.420 it in their sea promise all the way until 2020. 00:19:33.700 --> 00:19:36.519 2020. It took an organization dedicated to maritime 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:39.740 education over a century to update a slogan based 00:19:39.740 --> 00:19:42.480 on a fiction. And it isn't just in institutional 00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:45.789 handbooks either. In February of 2020, a pub 00:19:45.789 --> 00:19:47.890 in the town of Birkenhead Gallagher's traditional 00:19:47.890 --> 00:19:51.089 pub painted a massive romanticized mural on the 00:19:51.089 --> 00:19:52.950 side of their building celebrating the sinking 00:19:52.950 --> 00:19:56.170 of HMS Birkenhead, proudly bearing that exact 00:19:56.170 --> 00:19:59.430 slogan. We just cannot let the romance go. So 00:19:59.430 --> 00:20:01.589 what does this all mean? It means that Women 00:20:01.589 --> 00:20:04.450 and Children First was, at its core, a Victorian 00:20:04.450 --> 00:20:07.920 moral ideal. It was a temporary, localized tradition 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:10.240 that was born out of the deadly impracticality 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:12.779 of a shipping industry that refused to sacrifice 00:20:12.779 --> 00:20:14.700 deck space to pay for enough lifeboats. Yeah, 00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:17.619 a cover -up. Exactly. It was a beautiful, comforting 00:20:17.619 --> 00:20:20.240 story we told ourselves to mask an ugly, mathematical, 00:20:20.339 --> 00:20:22.799 industrial truth. It was never a reflection of 00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:24.980 actual human behavior in a crisis, as the data 00:20:24.980 --> 00:20:27.279 clearly shows us. And it's certainly not modern 00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:30.039 law. The stoicism of the Birkenhead was a celebrated 00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:32.519 exception to the rule of human panic. Thank you 00:20:32.519 --> 00:20:35.240 so much for joining us on this Deep Dive. We've 00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:37.559 navigated from the lightning -struck deck of 00:20:37.559 --> 00:20:40.200 the Poland to the empty lifeboats of the Titanic 00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:43.799 and finally landed on the cold, hard data of 00:20:43.799 --> 00:20:46.759 modern economics. To close us out today, we want 00:20:46.759 --> 00:20:49.099 to leave you with a final, provocative thought 00:20:49.099 --> 00:20:51.599 to chew on. Yeah, think about this. If women 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:54.579 and children first was ultimately a myth, a comforting 00:20:54.579 --> 00:20:57.299 illusion that society actively chose to believe 00:20:57.299 --> 00:20:59.519 through newspaper columns, Victorian novels, 00:20:59.700 --> 00:21:02.779 and blockbuster films, what other unwritten rules 00:21:02.779 --> 00:21:05.299 of human decency do we assume will protect us 00:21:05.299 --> 00:21:07.819 in a modern crisis simply because we've seen 00:21:07.819 --> 00:21:10.339 them play out on screen? Next time you board 00:21:10.339 --> 00:21:12.660 a ship, a commercial airliner, or even a crowded 00:21:12.660 --> 00:21:15.200 commuter train, take a look around and ask yourself. 00:21:15.470 --> 00:21:17.990 In the absolute worst case scenario, when the 00:21:17.990 --> 00:21:20.569 panic sets in, are you relying on the cold mechanics 00:21:20.569 --> 00:21:23.230 of the law to keep you safe, or are you secretly 00:21:23.230 --> 00:21:26.009 relying on a 19th century poem? A fascinating 00:21:26.009 --> 00:21:27.869 question to carry with you into the world. Until 00:21:27.869 --> 00:21:30.750 next time, stay curious, keep questioning the 00:21:30.750 --> 00:21:33.289 myths, and we'll see you on the next Deep Dive.