Examples of male privilege include:
- Being more likely to be hired, promoted, and paid more for work of equal value
- Having your gender widely represented as the “default” in the media (newspapers, fiction, television, film) with substantive roles and dialogue
- Being far less likely to experience intimate-partner violence, sexual harassment at work or on the street, and rape -- especially if you are heterosexual and cisgender (your gender is aligned with the sex assigned at birth - not transgender)
- Social norms allowing you to take up more physical space and dominate conversations, while not being expected to continually smile or apologise
- Not being judged as selfish if you choose to pursue a career instead of staying at home with your children, while being praised for carrying out parenting duties that women are simply expected to do
- Facing fewer professional consequences for putting less time and money into your appearance, e.g., to hide aging
In the parliamentary world, examples of male privilege include:
- Being surrounded by historical and contemporary images of leaders that are primarily your gender, giving the impression to the electorate that men are “natural” politicians
- Not being questioned about whether having children will hurt your ability to serve in public office
- Being an unlikely target of rumours that you were elected/appointed because of a sexual relationship with party leadership or another powerful individual
- Election loss is not interpreted as a result of your gender, nor discussed as a mark against your entire gender
- Not having your wardrobe or grooming scrutinised to the same extent as women, rather than your policy perspectives and leadership abilities