Male Privilege - Compensating For Male Privilege

Compensating For Male Privilege

Compensation for male privilege takes place in a difficult and ever-changing territory. Most Western countries have enacted laws intended to mitigate the disparity between men and women.

The courts in many countries are male-dominated and as a result only the more obvious abuses of male privilege are subjected to effective scrutiny and remedial action.

The disparity between male and female rights in some countries makes murder or ritualised rape an acceptable male response to specified female behaviour and, often, similar male behaviour. Even in countries that formally enact laws to criminalise honour killings, they are rarely prosecuted. For example, Human Rights Watch quotes the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan as reporting that: "The practice of summary killing of a woman suspected of an illicit liaison, known as karo kari in Sindh and Balochistan, is known to occur in all parts of the country. The Sindh government has reported an annual figure of 300 for such killings. HRCP's own findings reveal that in 1997 there were eighty-six karo kari killings in Larkana, Sindh, alone." Stein refers to the guarantees against sex discrimination built into the Indian Constitution, but states that "the most extreme forms of brutality towards women have proved stubbornly resistant to all forms of legal and educational attempts to eradicate them. The past few years have seen the continued growth and practice of dowry which was outlawed in the sixties... and finally in the eighties, attempts to re-establish sati as a justifiable practice." Several cases of sati occur each year, and even when death is avoided, widowhood in high-caste Hindu cultures can still have unfortunate consequences by Western standards. In other countries, women are not allowed out in public unless accompanied by a male relative, to drive cars, or to show their faces. Some of these regulations are based on religious laws, and some on long-standing misogyny. In either case, agitation for change in these societies is generally frowned upon. Several NGOs and women’s groups, however, have been pushing for change within these countries for decades and, in some cases, have achieved and continue to achieve more equitable systems.