Christian privilege
The concept of hegemony describes the ways in which a dominant group, in this case mainly U.S. Protestant Christians, disseminate their "dominant" social constructions as common sense, normative, or even universal, even though most of the world's inhabitants are not Christian. Christian hegemony also accepts Christianity as part of the natural order, even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it. Thus, Christian hegemony helps to maintain the marginality of other religions and beliefs. According to Beaman, "the binary opposition of sameness/difference is reflected in Protestant/minority religion in which mainstream Protestantism is representative of the 'normal'".
Hegemonic masculinity
Early criticisms of the concept raised the question of who actually represents hegemonic masculinity. Many men who hold great social power do not embody an ideal masculinity. Martin criticizes the concept for leading to inconsistent applications sometimes referring to a fixed type and other times to whatever the dominant form is. Wetherell and Edley contend this concept fails to specify what conformity to hegemonic masculinity actually looks like in practice. Similarly Whitehead suggests there is confusion over who actually is a hegemonically masculine man. Inspired by Gramsci's differentiation between hegemony as a form of ideological consent and dominance as an expression of conflict Groes-Green has argued that when hegemonic masculinities are challenged in a society dominant masculinities are emerging based on bodily powers, such as violence and sexuality, rather than based on economic and social powers. Through examples from his fieldwork among youth in Maputo, Mozambique he shows that this change is related to social polarization, new class identities and the undermining of breadwinner roles and ideologies in a neoliberal economy.