You can define status as "how much more ability to be treated favorably you have compared to other people," but I don't think that's a useful definition.

I agree. I think something more like: status is ability to influence or resist influence for social, non-environmental reasons, not covered by other relationship categories such as lust or love - if you have a super-laser-of-doom-and-evil on the moon pointed at the Earth, you may have influence, but not status.