wedrifid comments on A Rational Education - Less Wrong
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What does it mean to say that women are "institutionally lower-status" than men, and what is the metric for institutional status? This notion is counter-intuitive to me, because I think there are multiple institutions and multiple dimensions of status. Although I think it's plausible that men were indeed institutionally higher-status in many cultures throughout history, specifying why is actually a nontrivial philosophical problem that I don't feel feminists have thoroughly confronted.
For example, in Colombia, institutions may grant males more prestige, yet grant women more protection. Which gender has more "status" depends on whether your metric of status is something like "who is more likely to be in charge of the household," or "who is more likely to die horrible deaths to chainsaws or machetes." I'm not sure how we we can aggregate these metrics, considering how dramatically different the units are; it's kind of like adding up feet and pounds. Do dead men have status?
I think they do. People often seem to care a lot about how they die. Often they will much prefer the 'honour' of beheading by a sword rather than the gallows like a common thief. Even 'sword' vs 'axe' matters rather a lot. Ordering someone to commit ritual suicide is in some cases a kinder act than having them killed.
The desire for men to keep their status when they die is also rational, not just an outcome of having status seeking mechanisms that aren't calibrated to care that you're about to die anyway. The status of a parent, grandparent or in some cases even more distant ancestor significantly influence reproductive potential.