Male Privilege - Cultural Factors Regarding Male Privilege

Cultural Factors Regarding Male Privilege

In every aspect of modern life in politics, the law, the churches, the business world, the schools, and the family, the issue of sexual (sometimes gender) discrimination has grown in significance. A core assumption is that sexuality and sexual behaviour are natural outcomes, a simple result of genetics or biology. An alternative view is that sexuality is a social construction, where men and women are nurtured and encouraged to become appropriate members of the ambient society, as decided by the majority. These assigned gender roles carry with them packages of rights and duties, depending on whether the individual is male or female. Baer, for example, analyzed gender roles in the U.S.A and suggested that one of the factors slowing down progress towards greater equality has been the low number of women in the higher judicial ranks. Without effective input at a senior level to correct for male bias, she asserts that historical attitudes towards women's physiology limits them in their choice of career, their intellectual maturity, their credibility and their ability to be effective contributors to the advancement of human society.

In Muller v. Oregon 208 U.S. 412 (1908), Brewer J. said: "That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious. This is especially true when the burdens of motherhood are upon her. Even when they are not, by abundant testimony of the medical fraternity continuance for a long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects upon the body, and as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race."

Sex- or gender-based differentiation manifests itself differently in different cultural contexts. For example, it is evidenced by the glass ceiling and the wage gap in Western cultures, genital mutilation, dowry-related violence in Asian cultures, and the sexually exploitative trafficking of women and young girls.