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Male Privilege is a neologism used to describe what is, in the view of those using the term, both the extent to which patriachalism manifests itself through rights and privileges that are exclusive to the male gender, and the mechanisms that exist for equalising the genders. Those who use the term claim male privilege is an aspect of the more general considerations of power structures within societies and it examines

Three contributors to the debate

Simone de Beauvoir

In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir traces the development of patriarchal oppression through written and spoken historical, literary, and mythical sources, examining how women have been affected by the systematic representation of the male as a positive norm. She found that the female is almost always decribed as the Other. This repetition and reinforcement through all forms of discourse commonly leads to a loss of social and personal identity, and a form of alienation unique to the experience of women.

Michael Foucault

In the Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), Michel Foucault argued that an understanding of communities and their history can only emerge through a questioning of the assumptions and classifications that we use to describe knowledge. Only if we challenge the rules that have been developed to validate the truth of what we have been told, can the secret histories emerge. Before his death, he completed three volumes of The History of Sexuality, the first becoming a classic, which examine the roles of power and knowledge in controlling behaviour between the sexes.

Germaine Greer

In The Female Eunuch (1970), Germaine Greer explained how the differences between the sexes have been exaggerated and how sex roles are learned, not “natural”. She argued that both sexes deform their behaviour in order to conform to socially given gender roles.

The question

In every aspect of modern life in politics, the law, the churches, the business world, the schools, the universities, and the family, the issue of gender discrimination has grown in significance. The core assumption is that sexuality and sexual behaviour are not natural outcomes, forced on individuals by the reality of their genetics or biology. Instead sexuality is said to be a social construction, i.e. men and women are nurtured and encouraged through peer pressure to become what the majority considers appropriate members of the ambient society. These assigned gender roles carry with them packages of rights and duties, and these packages are often different depending on whether the individual is male or female. The question increasing asked is whether one gender is a victim of unfair treatment and, if so, what remedies should exist to redress the balance.

The issues

The way in which sexuality is defined is said to create a regime of power, i.e. the power of religious, legal, and other expert discourses to regulate social behaviour and control access to sexuality. Foucault argued that all power relations are formed where differences can be shown to exist in a real sense or where differences can be created. It is convenient that biological sexual differentiation is usually clear. The definition of sexuality is less clear because it involves making judgements as to social acceptability across the spectrum of sexual behaviour. The main body of research shows that the discourses have labelled the different forms of sexuality so as to inflate the value of some manifestations and devalue others. Hence, within the Churches, a power relationship is created between the clergy and the congregation which must confront and confess sins such as lust and fornication, and seek expiation from a forgiving enforcer of morality. A similar relationship has arisen between the psychoanalyst and the patient who must expose sexual motives and beliefs to critique by an expert. The institution of marriage, and therefore access to sexual relationships which avoid the stigma of sin or immorality, is regulated by formal laws, as are some other forms of sexuality. Such laws represent the judgement of social acceptability by the groups which control the law-making and policing functions within the society. It has therefore been difficult to raise issues of male privilege until societies became honest enough to admit both its existence and its possible unfairness.

In 2005, the Geneva-based World Economic Forum published a study titled, Women's Empowerment: Measuring the Gender Gap, measuring the extent to which women have achieved full equality with men in five critical areas:

• economic participation;
• economic opportunity;
• political empowerment;
• educational attainment; and
• health and well-being.

It then ranks countries according to the advancement of their female populations. The top ten countries are as follows:

1. Sweden
2. Norway
3. Iceland
4. Denmark
5. Finland
6. New Zealand
7. Canada
8. U.K.
9. Germany
10. Australia

The answers

Many states and supranational law-making bodies have enacted formal anti-discrimination laws. These laws seek to prevent discrimination based on race, sex (including sexual orientation), religion, national origin, physical disability, and age in a range of different social situations. In other words, sexuality is only one of the many ways in which power relationships may be used to justify differential treatment. But the fact that laws exist does not mean an end to discriminations. Rather, the introduction of any law is the admission of a failure to persuade the majority of those involved to implement the requested changes, and an acknowledgement that only the use of state-sanctioned force will correct behaviour.

Even when laws exist, there is the problem of obtaining a remedy. Many who are the victims of discrimination fear the process of litigation and the social consequences for challenging the status quo. Then there is the problem of interpretation by judiciaries which may be reluctant to condemn certain well-established practices. Further, even when some cases are successful, this does not necessarily lead to a general shfft in behaviour. Because sexuality has a deeper social significance than many of the other classifications of discrimination, the enforcement of sex discrimination laws is highly controversial in many countries where machismo or other forms of patriarchal norm are embedded in the national psyche. Effecting any change in such countries is difficult where critics are heard to assert that the potentially relevant elements of economic status, race, or social or cultural history in sexism are often belittled or ignored. Men's advocates say that sexism ultimately hurts every person in society, including men and that, in their zeal to brand all men as "beneficiaries" of sexism, women are simplistic in their judgements and just as prejudiced and biased as the men whom they claim are guilty of discrimination.

Then, of course, come the problems of whether laws should introduce positive discrimination to right past injustices. The argument may be crystalised as follows: if, for example, women have traditionally been barred from entering universities to study medicine, should a quota system be imposed on universities to guarantee a minimum percentage of women on all future courses? Assuming a finite number of places in a meritocratic system, the effect of such a law would be to exclude from medical study a number of otherwise well-qualified men. It is not their fault that past generations may have been privileged. They are now and they are being excluded not on merit, but because of a policy. The problem with this argument is that, if it were to be accepted at face value, there would never be a change of outcome. However, if discrimination is inherently wrongful, then it is wrongful whether it is positive or negative. So, although positive discrimination may be acceptable in the short term to prime the pump, the best answer is for the law to be simply and genuinely meritocratic and to require universities to admit only those students with the best qualifications. No-one can object if fair competition for places between the genders is the outcome because society will then get the best qualified doctors (assuming, of course, that the qualifying examinations produce unskewed results and that no non-academic criteria are allowed to bias admission should examination results be equal).

And that, of course, points to a key difficulty. Principles such as "equal pay for equal work" or "equal access to the membership of professions, trade bodies, associations and clubs", may be easily stated but can be extremely difficult to define with such certainty as to produce uniformity and predictability of outcome. Laws are crude brushstrokes. They can only address a few of the more obvious abuses where credible evidence is available, and the cost of using the courts system produces a worthwhile gain in society at large. But male privilege can exist as a right, advantage, exemption or immunity granted to or enjoyed by men in a vast number of informal and unregulated situations. It is any form of behaviour that encourages preferential treatment within a society and, therefore, completely beyond the scope of conventional formal legal reach. The only way to address any such discrimination is by education and this is a very long-term project for a society to undertake.

Link

http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Global+Competitiveness+Programme%5CWomen%27s+Empowerment%3A+Measuring+the+Global+Gender+Gap

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