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gwern comments on [LINK] International variation in IQ – the role of parasites - Less Wrong
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I have not voted on it, but if I were downvoting, my reasoning would run that this is a single link which many of us heard about at the time, and Gerard is not providing any context, real commentary, or comprehensiveness, and to some extent, he's focusing on uninteresting things: iodine is way cheaper than parasite prevention, as effective, and comes with nifty bonuses like 'increases the IQ of females more than males'. As well, the appeal to sanity waterline is a little misplaced without any reference to any of the papers I've been collating in http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_2011/4r01
Discussion has low standards, of course, but 1 link and 3 sentences is a bit low.
Why is that a bonus?
Because that makes iodine an intervention easier to market to feminists and anyone with feminist leanings, and increases in female intelligence may have positive effects on particularly benighted and distasteful countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Because in the eyes of the majority of western elites, poor women have higher status than poor men.
Do you have evidence for this claim? Note that this is not the same thing as claiming that in poor countries, women are often worse off than men.
I think it is obvious that helping women is better for signalling than helping men. This is enough to conclude that something which helps women more than men will be easier to promote.
The question is only why helping women is better signalling than helping men. (Even mentioning that poor men are excluded from women-oriented activities is low status.) One explanation is that poor women have it worse than poor men, so it is rational to give more help to poor women. Other explanation is that poor men have lower status than poor women, therefore activities for helping poor men are also lower status than activities helping poor women. These explanations are not contradictory.
I have no hard data; it just seems obvious to me that men are often judged by their ability to "win", while women are often judged by other criteria (such as beauty, etc.). Therefore the fact that a specific man needs help brings him greater status penalty than it would give to a woman. (Also on the opposite end of scale, success brings him greater status bonus; a rich man has higher status than a rich woman.) There is no male equivalent of "damsel in distress"; a helpless man worth rescuing is almost an oxymoron. This all makes sense from evolutionary perspective: in an ancient environment, if a male cannot fight and generally take care about himself, why spend group resources on his survival? In today's society it's not just about fighting, but the attitude translates to other things.
I think there are two pieces-- one is that helpless women are perceived as more worth helping than helpless men, as you say. The other piece is that women are perceived as more likely to help children, and helping people who are likely to be helpful is more efficient.
Quick and dirty assessment: if poor men and poor women had approximately equal status, then we'd expect the following:
This is pretty demonstrably not the case. (Quick google: compare the marketing resources devoted to http://www.kiva.org/women vs. http://www.kiva.org/men)
This seems to run into exactly the problem I brought up. Women in poor countries having higher status than men in the eyes of the West is not the same thing as the eyes of the West seeing women as worse off. If women are worse off then putting more effort into helping them may have higher marginal return than just helping men or helping everyone. What you've pointed to isn't good evidence for your claim.
It does not seem likely to me that this gap is entirely due to poor women being overwhelmingly worse off than poor men. Indeed, given the higher variance of men on a number of traits, it seems very unlikely to me that the worst off of men are better off than the worse off.
Given that "charity is not about helping," this discrepancy is more likely due to the status-induced motivated ignorance of philanthropists, than a rational cost-benefit calculation of where money can do the most good. (As a practical matter, I do think it's plausible that microfinance is more workable among women in the regions that Kiva has decided to target. But I don't think that's the motivation that shines through from the copywriting.)
I'm not sure how you would effectively measure the very worst off in any population. But this has other problems as well. First, most of the traits that males have high variance are things like mental illness where there's really not much we can do that is at all efficient even in the developed world, much less in poor countries. Second, what matters is not the absolute worst, but rather what the average level is like. If the average female is worse off than the average male, then it is likely that putting more resources into helping females will have higher pay-off than helping males.
Your analysis also ignores the basic fact that many of these societies are extremely discriminatory in their treatment of women. To use the example that you brought up of Kiva, part of why more microlending has been targeted at women more than at men is because it is often much easier in these societies for men to get loans through pre-existing social chanels.
I think you are engaging in a false dichotomy here. While charity is to some extent about status, it is also about actively helping. Groups like Village Reach wouldn't do very well if that weren't the case. Village Reach has effectively reached near optimal funding rates at this point in time. And other genuinely efficient charity groups are also doing quite well.
Furthermore, even charities like the Make A Wish Foundation get substantial anonymous donations or donations where the donors don't spend that much effort talking about it. This is because there's a third cause for donations- feeling like one is being helpful and good (or as is frequently termed here "warm fuzzies"). Some of this discrepancy also likely due to the fuzziness from helping people who are not only badly off but are actively mistreated in their own countries. The only charities that could possibly produce more warm fuzzies are charities for abused and abandoned puppies and kittens.
That could also be explained by people preferring helping women to helping men because they expect men likely to feel insulted/humiliated when offered charity. Or because they are more likely to perceive distant/foreign/poor men as potential threats.
The argument I've seen is that microlending works better when it's offered to women. Women are claimed (I haven't checked this) to be much more likely to put the money into supporting their families rather than spending it on personal consumption.