"Women and children first", known to a lesser extent as the Birkenhead drill, is a code of conduct whereby the lives of women and children were to be saved first in a life-threatening situation, typically abandoning ship, when survival resources such as lifeboats were limited. However, it has no basis in maritime law.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, "women and children first" was seen as a chivalric ideal. The concept "was celebrated among Victorian and Edwardian commentators as a long-standing practice – a 'tradition', 'law of human nature', 'the ancient chivalry of the sea', 'handed down in the race'." Its practise was featured in accounts of some 18th-century shipwrecks with greater public awareness during the 19th century. Notable invocations of the concept include during the 1852 evacuation of the Royal Navy troopship HMS Birkenhead and most famously during the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic. Despite its prominence in the popular imagination, the doctrine was unevenly applied. The use of "women and children first" during the Birkenhead evacuation was a "celebrated exception", used to establish a tradition of English chivalry during the second half of the 19th century.

According to one expert, in modern-day evacuations people will usually help the most vulnerable – typically those injured, elderly or very young children – to escape first.