reggin_bolas said:
A more relevant example is the modern draft. In times of war, women ought to be drafted just as men. Most women would shrug at the idea which reveals the hypocrisy of common feminism.
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Yes, and no.
Yes, women should be drafted equally in theory, but there is several stepping stones for that.
First, there would have to be a 'only one draft per family rule' otherwise children could end up without supervision/orphaned by design.
Second, you have to account for womens physical diffrences from men. Women in the military don't fight in the infantry, because they lack the required upper body strengh and endurance to carry the immense weight of body armor, ammo rounds and assorted gear and still be fast and flexible enough to keep up with their male colleagues.
While they might make excellent snipers, heli operators ect, they are a liability in the infantry and by proxy endanger the lives of their fellow soldiers. Even female soldiers themselves are lobbying against putting women into the infantry beause of these reasons.
Now I dont know what kind of percentage in soldier numbers the infantry makes up compared to the overall military, but if you account for the infantry having to basically be all male, yet still want to achieve an equal drafting system, you either have to put more women into all of the other positions (probably resuting in jobperspective inequality), or divide the remaining position 50/50 but have more men overall in the Military.
This is not unsolvable, by all means, but it is also not as simple as just 'also drafiting women'.
On topic: First and most important rule in case of crisis is clear and easy to understand ruleset in order to prevent an outbreak of panic. 'Women and children first' is one of those. Everyone immidiately understands the priorities set by it. As for reasons why it was chosen this way, aside from the chivalry of past times is probably that women and children were the two groups, the least likely to survive in the water/on debris on their own. In the past many women weren't taught how to swim, making their chances of suvival close to zero if they didn't get into a lifeboat. (Lifejackets would have rectified that somewhat though)
Women and children tend to be smaller, and loose body temperature faster then men on average too. That, and their superior upper body strengh would make a man in the sea more likely to survive than a woman. Last but not least, the rule was probably implemented to give the children at least one supervising part of their family to hang on to. Even back then men were permitted on lifeboats first if they had children to take care of and no wive that could have done it was present.
Today, the rule should probably more along the lines of 'Familys first' I guess, having a few men on a lifeboat can be a cucial advantage too. As a young, unmarried, childless person I'd be scewed anyways.
