Memes

Well the typical maritime disaster back then had far more resemblance with that of the SS Arctic's sinking, which had no surviving women and children no matter their status. It's the crew that's most likely to survive. The women and children were the most likely to perish. Every man for himself was indeed the norm, which is why the Titanic seemed special. It's more down an individual's survival skills, whether they were stationed/staying in the safest parts of the ship, and in some cases even their willingness to screw other people over in order to survive.

Gender, Social Norms and Survival in Maritime Disasters by Mikael Elinder, Oscar Erixson

Our results provide new insights about human behavior in life-and-death situations. By investigating a new and much larger sample of maritime disasters than has previously been done, we show that women have a substantially lower survival rate than men. That women fare worse than men has been documented also for natural disasters (32-36). We also find that crew members have a higher survival rate than passengers and that only 7 out of 16 captains went down with their ship. Children appear to have the lowest survival rate.

Moreover, we shed light on some common perceptions of how situational and cultural conditions affect the survival of women. Most notably, we find that it seems as if it is the policy of the captain, rather than the moral sentiments of men, that determines if women are given preferential treatment in shipwrecks. This suggests an important role for leaders in disasters. Preferences of leaders seem to have affected survival patterns also in the evacuations of civilians during the Balkan Wars (37).

Moreover, we find that the gender gap in survival rates has decreased since WWI. This supports previous findings that higher status of women in society improve their relative survival rates in disasters (35). We also show that women fare worse, rather than better, in maritime disasters involving British ships. This contrasts with the notion of British men being more gallant than men of other nationalities.

Finally, in contrast to previous studies, we find no association between duration of the disaster and the influence of social norms. Based on our analysis, it becomes evident that the sinking of the Titanic was exceptional in many ways and that what happened on the Titanic seems to have spurred misconceptions about human behavior in disasters.