HOW MANY STANDARDS DO YOU HAVE?

Tonight I’d like to address one of the pillars upon which our society is built- double standards. A double standard exist when an action, moral or standard is considered appropriate and praiseworthy for one group , but is considered wrong or deplorable for another.  

Double standards have become so common place that we go about our daily lives oblivious to most of them and they only surface or become bad when they apply to you.  Double standards come in many shapes and sizes. They exist in every level of life. There are double standards in gender, religion, age, weight, race etc. it would take me days to highlight all of them I'm therefore going to talk about the ones that stand out to me.

When it comes to males and females the most popular double standard is related to sex. Men are praised for having multiple sexual partners while a female that sleeps with the same amount of men or even for just having sex outside of a committed relationship  is labeled a whore.  

Women are brave and strong when they hit a man that has disrespected or angered then and get away with their all time favourite – a slap to the face. But a man is looking at social ridicule and even jail time if he should put his hand on a woman regardless of what she has done. 

We lock our daughters  away from the dating scene for as long as we can but our sons? I know many fathers who are proud to say “mi son a gyalis “

Men in the work place get charged for sexual harassment for glancing at a female’s exposed cleavage but females on co ed dorms are know to corner and strip males as a part of initiation

 My least favourite double standard is the fact that it is customary For men in their late 20s to settle into his relationship and start sporting his ‘married man belly’ but females are under pressure to maintain their 21 year old figure.

But double standards span far beyond the scope of just mere gender biases .There exist economical double standards as well. When a uptown woman has an abortion she “had a procedure”. A middle class woman “had an abortion” but a ghetto woman? “Dash weh belly”.

The topic of race has some of the most obvious double standards to which most chose to turn a blind eye. What many are afraid to say is that black people are some of the most racist people in the world . and are forever hiding behind the race card and their history. And I'm  not here to discredit that but BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION?.. if the white people where to have a W.E.T(white entertainment television) there would be no end to it but its all good and dandy when black people have BET and Eminem  was the only white person allowed on it. If this is not a double standard then no double standards exist. 

Black people can vote for Obama because he is black but white people cant say their reason for voting for someone is because he is white without being racist.

 Even the crimes commited against blacks, Hispanic, or other races carry a double standard. Drive by shootings claim thousands of young innocent lives but no one bats an eye until the killer is a white man. We can kill our own in droves but how dear another race kills us.

 

Im just going to scrape the tip of the ice burg on religious double standards. Christians born and bread in their religion believe with all their heart that what they believe is absolute and they serve the one true God but have no tolerance for some1 born in a different part of the world who are loyal to their Gods.

 

On the flip side some religions are held in a higher esteem than others. For example if you disrupt a Muslim gathering or burn a Koran this sis seen as a hate crime, but burn the bible ban public display of Christian practices and you are a just exercising your right to not be subjected to religious oppression. 

And the biggest double standard that exist is that other people have double standards but you do not.

As unfair as double standards can be they have their place in society as a way of making the world easier to understand. A basic list of the what you can and cannot do. We may not like it but its true what jackass said ‘di worle no level”.