You’re right, the short answer is that they believe themselves to be exceptions to their own rules.

We live in a time when the President of the United States of America has stood up in public and said it’s a hard time to be a man right now… called brown people rapists and criminals… told people of color to go back to “their” country even if they were born in the USA… and will forever be known for that “grab ’em by the pussy” sentence, because when you’re rich and famous and powerful, you can get away with it.

Human nature being what it is, we tend to take our cues from those we perceive as being higher in status because we are status animals not so different from apes. So is it any surprise when we see behavior like this? Let a woman try it, and the backlash would be swift and sure. They say shit rolls downhill, and that’s what it’s doing.