Women And Children First Myth

Studies of 18 maritime disasters between 1852 and 2011 show that the idea of always evacuating women and children first has never been a binding rule in maritime law. In practice, men are more likely to survive shipwrecks than women, and children actually have the lowest chances of survival. The main famous exception is the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, where about 75 percent of the women on board survived compared to only about 17 percent of the men.

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