what exactly does DOUBLE STANDARD mean?

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can people describe it?

The term "double standard" is used quite frequently within a gender relations' context.

A classic manifestation of the "double standard":

1. A man cheats on his wife many times, yet is considered a stud/Don Juan/Casanova, etc. by those around him (including, sometimes, his wife).

2. A woman cheats on her husband once. She is automatically considered a slut/whore/dirtbag, etc. by those around her (including, quite frequently, other women).

It means it's ok for one person to do something, but if another person does exactly the same thing it's not ok.

It's where NTs get away with bullying a neurologically challenged person, but if any of us even hurt an NT's feelings a teeny bit and just once, oh dear. We get scolded and told we are mean and inconsiderate, and that we must never hurt anybody's feelings ever again.

I'm referring "we" as in any non-NT who is targeted by bullies.

One example is people thinking that men can't and never are sexually harassed or assaulted and only women can be. It's because people think that real men always want sex and are in the mood and if they don't there's something horribly wrong with them.

I've seen plenty of examples where a female is stalking and obsessed with a male and it's considered funny or cute but if it was the other way around it would be creepy and gross.

People think only men can be pedophiles but never women unless that women is *really* ugly or a lesbian.
I even once read somewhere they once forbid men to sit next to children on a plane but it was perfectly okay for women to do it even if they are complete stranger.

I remember when I was a little girl, I always teased and didn't know when to stop. I would tease and would be told to stop. But when other kids would do it to me, I would get told "They're just playing, they're doing that to other kids too." And they wonder why I kept teasing?


When I would go to school, other kids would do silly things but when I would do them, the staff would make a big deal about it but ignore what the other kids were doing and it was caught on video when they video taped me so when I pointed it out to my speech therapist, her response was "Don't worry about them, we're only focusing on you" and they wonder why I had behavior problems?


Yes no wonder I was very frustrated and had anxiety and by 6th grade I wanted to commit suicide because I was so sick and tired of being different and not able to be normal and I couldn't get others to treat me as normal like everyone else. I was still treated differently. My mother asked me "How did you get so depressed?" It was lot of things then that led me to that direction not just this.

Double = Two
Standard = Rule

Typically a "standard" is the rule for dealing with a certain situation. In the case of a double-standard, an irrelevant exception (the second "standard") is applied unfairly based on irrelevant criteria.

Like if it's stated that "all employees in this role shall make x amount" and women are paid less, that's the double-standard.

Fat guys who expect women to be thin. Its OK for them to eat junk food and pack on a few pounds, but if a women has a few extra, its time for diet and exercise. They have more important things to do than manage their weight.

An example is someone who is a serial adulterer who publicly accuses someone else of being immoral and untrustworthy for sexual infidelity in marriage, while presenting his own adulterous betrayal of former spouses as excusable because he believes that he is exempt from the same moral standard he accuses others of breaking, and entitled to exemptions because he is better than other people. Double standards are often paired with this kind of entitlement and skewed moralistic behaviour.

Colloquially, the double standard is most referred to by the vernacular phrase

"do as I say, not as I do".