Melinda Henneberger, one of the authors of Slate’s XX blog, offers this interesting anecdote:
just yesterday, I needed to see my doctor urgently, couldn’t get an appointment, and so in desperation showed up in his office without one, but with my husband in tow—not so much for moral support as because I thought the sight of a man who had taken the day off work might get action. It did, and he was amazed at the way the whole attitude in the "matriarchy" of the all-woman office shifted to accommodate him.
I have a vague sense that this is the case, that I sometimes get taken care of/helped out/attended 
to/taken seriously by women in a way that my wife doesn’t, but it’s usually invisible to me because, by definition, if I’m around to witness then my wife and I are beneficiaries of the treatment I get.
I do notice, however, that whenever my wife goes into the donut shop alone she seems to come out with free donuts but when we go in together we get only the donuts we paid for.
