Status and Contract

progress necessarily involves freeing individuals from their status stations

I am skeptical that we shall ever be free from focusing on status

I think the two uses of the word "status" above have entirely different meanings. The first refers to "status" like caste in traditional India, an unchangeable aspect that a person is born into. The second refers to a position arrived at (at least often) by an individual's efforts.

The two are quite different. Assigning jobs by birth status is seldom a good idea. Assigning jobs by academic status may be fine, depending, of course, on whether academic status reflects true academic worth.

This is dead on stuff Arnold.

The use of math and "testing" in economics is sort of like the mounting ritual among dogs.

Arnold, you've rediscovered radical feminism!

I disagree with Radford Neal about the ambiguity of 'status'. In some societies it is harder than in others to change your status, but it is always possible. All you have to do is to get others to take a different attitude toward you--voila, your status has changed! But the means of effecting such a change, and the difficulty of doing so, will (of course) vary across societies.

Even Indian caste isn't *really* immutable; there are individuals who have changed caste. (And, of course, *caste* isn't the whole story about one's *status*.)

Sure, even in the most rigid societies, "status" isn't always completely immutable. But the first quotation is decrying status to the extent that it is immutable, whereas in the second quotation, the use of "status" has nothing to do with immutability.

"male dominance hierarchy"

Don't use nouns to modify nouns. It's infelicitous and unclear. Have you never read Fowler?

Indeed. The prevalence of phrases such as "nail clipper", "pig farm", and "train station" are a testament to the decline of our educational system.

Re: male dominance theory--Big Picture?

Arnold's comment is clearly descriptively accurate. I think there is a legitmate question to ask as to which is the cause and which is the effect. Is it possible that male dominance is the effect, not the cause, of a self selection process of female withdrawal at various stages of the advancement process? Now, this question seems self evidently absurd if one goes back, say, 200 years. But then what made humankind so male dominant?

Rather than answering that question lets fast forward to today. My undergraduate liberal arts college's economics majors are dominated by males. Three female students gave oral presentations on the anti-feminist environment of the Economics Department. This is in a Northeastern politically liberal school. I cannot vouch for the validity of that view. But assume it is true.

Wouldn't it be different if the majority of majors were women, rather than men? That is, overt male "dominance" would seem difficult to succeed if half of all Eco. students were women. Why are not half of all Eco students women? (I use this as a hypothetical that could imply to other situations). They choose not to major in it for other reasons not related to male dominance. It is more plausible to me that this describes how males react when they are in a male majority environment rather than that behavior causes a male majority environment.

Business School student population is almost 2/3 male. Why? When I worked on Wall Street, as many as half of the first year analysts were women (30 years ago). The ratio radically dropped as each cohort year advanced forward in time. Again, why? If they stayed, male dominance would have been far more difficult to succeed, simply because at some point that is not possible due to numbers. Look at political elections for example.

Women self select out for a variety of reasons I believe. This should be a valid topic for analysis. The fact that women have babies still seems like the most obvious reason. While clearly not a deterministic cause, it seems on average over time it creates a tendency.