Calling Men Out On Double Standards

Yesterday was International Women's Day, a significant day given that in three-quarters of the world women are still struggling for social, political, and economic equality. This is especially true in the traditional strongholds of macho culture: the Mediterranean, South America, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and Asia, where men are considered worth more than women on a cultural standard. Even today, in China, boys are still considered blessings and girls looked down upon or forced to work on their beauty and compete with one another to get "prize" husbands. In Portugal, Brazil, and Spain, there still remains a traditional expectation of the "good obedient Catholic wife," and ironically honor killings are still very common among the white Christians of Lusitanian and Latino cultures if a man's wife is ever caught cheating on her husband. But meanwhile many of these men believe they are entitled to be be unfaithful to their wives, to flirt and play outside of the house, while expecting their wives to be entirely faithful to them. Spain has the highest rate of domestic violence in Europe, according to the BBC: "At least one woman dies every week in Spain at the hands of her partner." 

In Egypt, yesterday, women gathered in Tahrir Square to mark International Women's Day in a protest for their equality. In a sad reminder of how far there is yet to go for women's rights in the Middle East, a group of men came out to protest against equality for women in Egypt and drowned out the women. According to Deutsche Presse: In a twist to the slogan 'Down with the regime' - widely chanted throughout the anti-government protests that led to the ouster of Hosny Mubarak as president - several men chanted 'Down with women.' There were also reports from an activist on the scene that the female protesters were sexually harassed. Shame on the men who desire freedom for Egypt but not freedom for her women. Shame on their hypocrisy.

This is the cost of the culture of machismo, cultures that do not see the value of women and equate female value solely on ideas of sexual purity and obedience. It is a culture of humiliation and double standards where respect is measured on the boundaries of sexuality, on the delusional idea that it's honorable for a man to sow his oats at the expense of a woman and that a woman's place is to be a loving and loyal wife to an unfaithful cad. Meanwhile, these men lose respect for the women that give in to his advances and charm outside of marriage but he still expects his wife to be a picture of sainthood. Men who live by this double standard are hypocrites at best.

I've touched upon the sexual double standard in previous posts. Macho culture holds to the inherent 'specialness' of the male because simply he was born male. This concept has been permeated in these cultures for thousands of years, boys are treated better than girls from the moment they're born boys. Typical of Lusitanian and Latino cultures, boys are spoiled, given the bigger morsels at the dinner table, expected to go out and play without curfews while their sisters stayed at home and had to adhere to curfews. I am not blaming men entirely for this, women themselves, mothers and grandmothers raised in such a culture, often co-opt this concept of 'male specialness.' These men grow up in environments where they are imbued with a sense of their exceptionalism vis-à-vis women and think that being 'manly' equates with their ability to do whatever they want while guarding their sexual territory: their wives, girlfriends, or any other women that are supposed to be under 'their control.' They are born and raised with a sense of undue entitlement that humiliates the women they interact with, marry, and cross in their lives because of their skewed attitudes concerning gender roles. They live like hypocrites, applying morals and standards to women which they themselves do not abide by.

In lieu of International Women's Day and on behalf of women everywhere: Gentlemen, if you expect morality from women, be moral. If you expect love, be loving. If you expect respect, be respectful. Otherwise, you have NO right to judge your wives, sisters, daughters, or female friends as to how they behave if you're incapable of acting by the standards you yourself set for them. There are no double standards.

If some men from these cultures continue to believe they are entitled to rights and allowed to engage in behaviors women can't, they need to revise their values. They are not worthy of good or loyal women if they are not going to be good upstanding men. Let's throw out the myth: it is not a woman's civilisational responsibility to make men moral, it is each individual's responsibility by his God-given reason to chose to be moral by the standards they have set for themselves. They should become the embodiment of what they want in the opposite sex otherwise they have no right to judge or seek to hold the opposite sex to a standard they won't live by.