At its most basic and cliché level, protectionism require slip service to "putting children first, "while obscuring just exactly what that means or how it can be done. This chapter expose sharsh hierarchies of survival usually hidden by sent imental romance and heroic narrative, enabled by eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuryprinciples of property and ownership, in which children were far from first and often dead last. Though the chivalrousecho "women and children first" would become adominant sentiment in fictionalized modern survival narratives, early maritime historiestella different story about protective measures for children at sea, which the author highlights through historic accounts of rescue practice during famous ship wrecks, the legal predicament of Amistad "orphans," and even customs of survival can nibalism. Protection, where present, ishighly selective, and even where seemingly fairly applied can impedeparticipation.
Women and children first
