21世纪大学英语读写教程第三册02

Unit 2

Text A

Pre-reading Activities

1. There are many traditional forms of courtesy toward women — gestures like lighting their cigarettes for them or standing up when they enter a room. What others can you think of?

2. As you listen to the passage the first time, see if it mentions any of the polite gestures that you thought of. Then listen again for the answers to the following questions:
a) Where do you imagine the incident the woman describes took place?
b) What courtesy did she expect?
c) What, in the man's view, is the basis of a lot of common courtesy?

3. What do you think of the woman's argument about everyday reality? What about the man's view of common courtesy?

The Titanic Puzzle Should a good feminist accept
priority seating on a lifeboat?

Charles Krauthammer

You're on the Titanic II. It has just hit an iceberg and is sinking. And, as last time, there are not enough lifeboats. The captain shouts, "Women and children first!" But this time, another voice is heard: "Why women?"
Why, indeed? Part of the charm of the successful movie Titanic are the period costumes, the period extravagance, and the period prejudices. An audience can enjoy these at a distance. Oddly, however, of all the period attitudes in the film, the old maritime tradition of "women and children first" enjoys total acceptance by modern audiences. Listen to the audience boo at the bad guys who try to sneak on the lifeboats with — or ahead of — the ladies.
But is not grouping women with children a raging anachronism? Should not any self-respecting modern person, let alone feminist, object to it as insulting to women?
Yet its usage is as common today as it was in 1912. Consider these examples taken almost at random from recent newspapers:
"The invaders gunned down the Indians, most of them women and children..."
"As many as 200 civilians, most of them women and children, were killed..."
"At the massacre in Ahmici 103 Muslims, including 33 women and children, were killed..."
At a time when women fly combat aircraft and run multi-national corporations, how can one not wince when adult women are routinely classed with children? In Ahmici, it seems, 70 adult men were killed. And how many adult women? Not clear. When things get serious, when blood starts to flow or ships start to sink, you'll find them with the children.
Children are entitled to special consideration for two reasons: helplessness and innocence. They have not yet acquired either the faculty of reason or the wisdom of experience. Consequently, they are defenseless (incapable of fending for themselves) and blameless (incapable of real sin). That's why we grant them special protection. In an emergency, it is our duty to save them first because they, helpless, have put their lives in our hands. And in wartime, they are supposed to be protected by special immunity because they can have threatened or offended no one.
The phrase "women and children" attributes to women the same dependence and moral simplicity we find in five-year-olds. Such an attitude perhaps made sense in an era dominated by male privilege. Given the disabilities attached to womanhood in 1912, it was only fair that a new standard of gender equality not suddenly be proclaimed just as lifeboat seats were being handed out. That deference — a somewhat more urgent variation on giving up your seat on the bus to a woman — complemented and perhaps to some extent compensated for the legal and social constraints placed on women at the time.
But in our era of extensive social restructuring to grant women equality in education, in employment, in government, in athletics, what entitles women to the privileges — and reduces them to the status — of children?
Evolutionary psychologists might say that ladies-to-the-lifeboats is an instinct that developed to perpetuate the species: Women are indispensable child-bearers. You can repopulate a village if the women survive and only a few of the men, but not if the men survive and only a few of the women. Women being more precious, biologically speaking, than men, evolution has conditioned us to give them the kind of life-protecting deference we give to that other seed of the future: kids.
The problem with this kind of logic, however, is its depressing reductionism. It's like a serious version of the geneticist's old joke that a chicken is just an egg's way of making another egg. But humans are more than just egg-layers. And traditional courtesies are more than just disguised survival strategies. So why do we say "women and children"?
Perhaps it's really "women for children." The most basic parental bond is maternal. Equal parenting is great, but women, from breast to cradle to reassuring hug, can nurture in ways that men cannot. And thus, because we value children, women should go second. The children need them.
But kiddie-centrism gets you only so far. What if there are no children on board? You are on the Titanic III, and this time it's a singles cruise. No kids, no parents. Now: Iceberg! Lifeboats! Action!
Here's my scenario. The men, out of sheer irrational heroism, should let the women go first. And the women, out of sheer feminist self-respect, should refuse.
Result? Stalemate. How does this movie end? How should it end? Hurry, the ship's going down.
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