>>40118835 (OP)First of all, the children part is obvious and probably doesn’t even merit articulation, but basically they have the most future, are the most innocent, and need the most protection.
With women it’s a little more complicated and a lot of the logic is rooted in patriarchal misogy/misandry chivalrous paradigm. To start with, any woman within a certain age range could possibly be pregnant, and it would be a genuinely actually abhorrent decision to not consider a pregnant woman a priority in a lifeboat scenario. A lot of other justifications are rooted in antiquated reductive ideals, though, like considering the women as maternal home-keepers and baby factories. They were also at times considered more innocent by matter of having less agency than men. That, of course, places men in the unenviable position to make the sacrifice of being last in the lifeboat scenario, despite the fact that many of the lifeboats of the Titanic left before reaching capacity. You could say that the individual man’s life was considered less valuable than the woman’s, and that is to some degree true, but they were also considered to have more autonomy in kind and thus more capable of bravely sacrificing themselves in the face of disaster.
I think the point that OP is insinuating at by posing this question is that it’s unjust how women are more highly valued in our society, and to some extent that’s true. However it’s also missing the bigger picture. Patriarchal cisheteronormativity is reductive of both men’s and women’s values, and each side of that false dichotomy is encouraged to view the other as privileged. I believe that our system is truly patriarchal at the very highest of society, but each binary cis gender reaps distinct privileges and suffers distinct discrimination in the baser classes. Thus, women don’t really see how hard life is for men, and the same is true of men towards women. We’re only given enough perspective to envy the other.