Women and children first? Experts say that in most crises, it's more like everyone for themselves

LONDON (AP) — So much for women and children first.

The phrase and its grave implications about who to save first in a catastrophe are rooted in the shipwrecks of centuries past and popularized by Hollywood's treatment of the Titanic disaster. It is getting another airing at a time when, in many societies, women are expected to do most everything men do. Experts say the unwritten law of the sea is a Hollywood-fed myth and a relic of Victorian-era chivalry.

At the center of this round of questions is the prisoners-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas in November that prioritized releasing women and children after negotiators agreed that mothers and their children should not be separated. Israelis are overwhelmingly supportive of this approach. But it leaves behind elderly and injured men, a result that has angered some families.

“To say ‘women and children’ in the 21st century — as if families can be whole without the fathers, as if children that have come back with their fathers still there can in any way start recovering from the trauma — is unthinkable," Sharone Lifshitz, whose mother was freed in October and whose 83-year-old father, Oded, remains in captivity, told The Associated Press.