The Power of Masculine Privilege: Comparing Male Overrepresentation in the Australian Political and the Construction Sectors

Recent work (Bjarengard 2013, Murray 2014; Eveline 1994, 1998) has reorientated the focus of unequal political representation away from female underrepresentation towards male overrepresentation. This work has obvious and widespread implications for other sectors as well. This paper compares the overrepresentation of men in political life with men in professional positions in the Australian construction sector – the most male dominated sector in the Australian economy. It shows, that as with attempts to introduce gender equality policies into politics through quotas, government led gender diversity policies and initiatives to address men’s over representation in construction has made no impact: recent figures show that men’s overrepresentation in the Australian politics has remained constant while it has increased in construction industry in recent years. Using key concepts from the literature on masculinities and on feminist institutionalism, this paper argues that part of the explanation for overrepresentation of men in both Australian political life and construction is linked to practices that privilege and maintain hegemonic masculinities, which in turn serve to maintain gender hierarchies. Using elite interviews and ethnographic data from the construction sector, the paper demonstrates that as in political life, entrenched privilege produces inevitable rewards, legitimizes inequalities and perpetuates ignorance. These effects of privilege combine to act as a barrier to the attraction, retention and progression of women to the construction sector. The paper concludes that despite core differences between the two sectors, the concept of privilege provides a valuable lens to explore how hegemonic and complicit masculinities maintain male overrepresentation within both construction and politics overtime.