B. Deutsch: Male Privilege Checklist

There are some of us that have a privilege in some aspect of our lives and don't even know it. Without going to look for power, we don't realized that we have it. Although I am East Asian and a woman (and I can be oppressed within and across gender in comparison to a man, and racially with white men and women) I hold privileges too. 

Economically: I grew up privileged. I've been working since I was 14, but having family money put me at ease. I had a back-up plan if anything were to happen... emergency money was a phone call away.

Abilities: I'm able bodied. I can walk, speak, have basic motor skills to button up my shirt. I don't have to look for limited parking spaces that are reserved for people like me, yet, people who don't need them take them anyway. I can enter establishments with or without ramps, automatic doors and elevators big enough for my wheelchair. I hold privileges as an able-bodied individual.

Sexuality: Having never questioned my own heterosexuality, I hold privileges of being straight. I can publicly display affection for my significant other without concern that I am being watched, judged and the basis for a joke.
...

Without looking for power in these areas, I just have them. And these powers and privileges I possess cannot be forfeited just because I am oppressed by gender and race. Powers are not exchangeable. 

Below is B. Deutsch's Male Privilege Checklist that was posted on Black Coffee Poet's Blog (by Jorge Vallejos).


I appreciate that it doesn't just address issues of wage gaps and violence when discussing gender studies. It addresses privileges men have various levels of the social world.

Here it is: 

1. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.

2. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces.

3. Chances are my elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more likely this is to be true.

4. I can be somewhat sure that if I ask to see “the person in charge,” I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.

5. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.

6. If I have sex with a lot of people, it won’t make me an object of contempt or derision.

7. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)

8. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even God, in most major religions, is usually pictured as being male.

9. Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are much rarer.

10. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover.