But reducing a woman's usefulness to her reproductive capacity, and a man's to his ability to procreate, is only true from a Darwinian perspective. Otherwise, women not capable of bearing children would be just as 'useless' as males. I also think it's more complicated then that anyways - especially in social species, everyone has their role to play.
Though in some alternative reality with a tiny population of humans, I could understand saving females first as they can carry children. You'd only need a few males to knock up all the females. That doesn't apply to our overpopulated world, however.