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Unhappily, males are disposable. See this about bull calves.
The flip side of "alpha guy in his society has literal harem of women" is that you don't need that many men to be reproductively active, you can populate your locale with only a few, selected men so long as fertile women are available in sufficient numbers. That means a pressure to winnow out men to find the fittest to reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generation, and that means competition among men and high standards for mates by women.
I understand the logic of where male disposability came from. The point of this thread is to raise awareness of the fact that it exists at all, when most of modern feminism seems predicated on the assumption that it doesn't.
Even if we admit that male disposability in some respects may be a necessary evil for a society or tribe to effectively multiply and flourish (I recently rewatched Titanic and am 100% onboard with the Birkenhead drill: I found the sacrifice of the men travelling in first class who willingly laid down their lives that women might escape unscathed far more moving and affecting than any component of the Jack and Rose A-story), I don't think that necessarily implies the "women are wonderful effect" or hypoagency are justified. Male disposability implies that it's wrongheaded to execute a woman for capital crimes even if we would happily execute a man who committed the same crimes, fair enough. But why does male disposability imply that women cannot be held accountable for any acts of wrongdoing, why we must scramble and contrive reasons that someone (some man) other than the woman in question was at fault for the crime she freely chose to commit? The male disposability hypothesis presumes that societies are loath to kill women because they're required for child-bearing and -rearing, but isn't there an argument that a systemic refusal to hold women accountable for their decisions prevents them from learning the skills they will need to be effective child-rearers?
I guess you could stretch it to argue that the successful men who haven't been disposed of are responsible, like captains at sea, for everything the women in their household do and fail to do. Therefore, if a man's wife commits murder or robbery or fraud, it is the man who is responsible and knows or should have known and done something to prevent it. His failure to do so means that he is unfit and must be punished. I don't exactly agree with this, as I am a Westerner and not a Talib, but that's my best argument for it.
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I never watched Titanic because I thought the story was idiotic. Why did Cameron feel the need to plug in an invented romance, I have no idea. Wanted to make a chick-flick? Who knows.
Women were executed for crimes in the past. Maybe the past was harder-headed. Maybe we're just softer about executing any criminals today. Maybe there's a difference in the type of crimes committed by men and women for which execution is the punishment.
I think everyone should be held responsible for freely-chosen actions. But we're in the throes of over-correction. Talking about how women disproportionately get custody in separation and divorces ignores that (1) men used to get automatic custody, and indeed often abusive husbands used that as a weapon against their wives - divorce me and never see your children again (2) women were and are disproportionately the caretakers of children. More men may be willing to be full-time fathers and look after their kids, but it's still catching up.
Is that used now as a weapon against men? Yeah, and the solution there is to work out how to stop vicious divorces and the best interests of the children, and I'm happy to go along with "don't rely on social workers who are too easy fooled by a sob story when deciding which parent gets custody". But on the other hand, I've seen examples from my workplaces of men who wanted nothing to do with their kids and indeed in one case was actively fucking over the kid just because he was still in a pissing match with the mother years after the separation.
Here's 1.8 billion reasons why. I remember when it was in theaters, and many of the women I knew went to see it multiple times. The music video was blared non-stop on MTV. It wasn't because they were moved by the sacrifice of the men in first class.
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