Frankie Mullin
As fresh revelations about the Costa Concordia tragedy hit the headlines, including allegations of rich passengers paying to be given lifeboat places as the ship sank, murky moral questions linger.
When push really does come to shove and decisions must be made about whose life is more worthy of saving, who should we choose?
Some dilemmas seem less murky than others: Captain Francesco Schettino's hasty leap into a lifeboat for instance. Not OK. As the person in charge, you have a responsibility to stay on, as by doing so lives may be saved.
Also not-murky: Whether children also should be given the first lifeline. Of course they should and few would argue with this.
Likewise, those with disabilities will probably have less chance as the disaster unfolds and should therefore be helped before the able-bodied.
Where the murk begins is with gender. Why exactly should women be given first dibs on the lifeboat? The physical strength argument doesn't cut it; the discrepancy is surely not enough to decrease our chances of survival in any practical sense.
What this "chivalry" (and I don't knock the bravery of any man who gives up his place in a lifeboat for a woman) stems from is a deep-rooted assumption that women, like children, are somehow more helpless than the men-folk.
Small examples of this happen every day. On the tube, jostling uncomfortably to work, we all eye longingly any seat that become available. But if you're a women, I estimate that seat is 50 per cent more likely be yours.
Almost daily, I go through an uncomfortable exchange in which a guy - who's been standing for as long as I have - gestures for me to sit down when a seat becomes available, for no other reason than that I'm female.
I've given up trying to counter-offer the seat back; both parties just end up embarrassed and awkward so , yes, I (gratefully) plonk down, wondering if the guy is inwardly cursing me.
Tube seats are given up for old people, sick people and pregnant women. Females in general are just as capable of standing as men (bar our admittedly heavier handbags). So, generously though it may be meant, offering us your seats is patronising.
We can't have it both ways - either women are equal to fellas and can therefore stand on the tube or wait with the men for their 50/50 chance of getting in the lifeboat, or we're not. It's neither logical nor fair to be demand an end of chauvinism, except when it's convenient for us.
