Writing out a list of “acceptable” double standards in society might miss the forest for the trees, but are there any double standards in society, the workplace, relationships or the world which you think are necessary, justified, or “there’s no good alternative?”
Are double standards *always *bad?
Parent-child relationships? You can tell them to go to the naughty step, but they generally can’t tell you.
I remember Jared Diamond writing that he doesn’t believe in this sort of power imbalance and that he was once sent to his room by his young child. I don’t know why, but I found the image of him, head held low, shuffling sulkily up the stairs at the command of a toddler, absolutely hilarious.
Define double standard here. What some may call a double standard others may call reasonable accommodation. Can you give an example?
I think double standards can be justifiable, sure.
You’ve got two employees. One employee is an excellent worker. High performer, gets along well with everyone, never complains, very dependable. Another employer is mediocre. Inconsistent performer, rubs people the wrong way, always complaining, unreliable.
Let’s say that both employees are caught violating the workplace internet policy in equal measure.
It would be a double standard to write-up the “bad” employee while looking the other way for the other one. And yet, a manager can justify it by pointing out that the superior employee more than makes up for a few stray minutes of internet surfing with her stellar job performance. Her internet habit obviously isn’t getting in the way of her productivity, and her manager may be concerned that taking disciplinary action against her may cause her to start looking for alternative employment. On the other hand, the inferior employee is driving everyone crazy. Perhaps getting written up is what they need to either shape up or ship out.
The problem comes when the double standard is highly visible to both parties. The crappy employee sees that his office mate can surf the web with impunity and understandably gets ticked off about it, which only exacerbates his interpersonal interactions, which lowers his job performance. Meanwhile, Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes starts thinking her shit don’t stink and starts taking more liberties. So I do think double standards are risky even when they can be rationalized.
I think double standards are reasonable with people who have different intellectual capacities. People who can’t understand why something they are doing is wrong or can’t understand that it is wrong need to be treated differently than people who know exactly what they are doing. The obvious case is with babies, who shouldn’t be punished for stuff they can’t understand, but it applies in other situations as well.
More controversially, I also think there’s room for double standards based on wealth. Our progressive income tax system works on this principal, and there are other circumstances where I think it makes sense to have people who can afford to pay more do so.
Hot female teacher getting it on with her 15yo student is something I just can’t manage to get myself worked up about.
Only when they’re to my advantage.
“Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich”
-Peter Ustinov
Parent-child relationships are inherently unbalanced, so are supervisor-employee, teacher-student, etc. I would consider it a double standard if there’s a rule in the household that children can’t do something, both children do it, one gets punished, the other does not.
However, even in that situation, I’m not sure it’s necessarily a double standard because the punishment needs to be appropriate for the child. One child may respond to, say, having their computer or TV privileges revoked, the other may not. So you end up with two kids being punished differently for the same act, both seeing the other’s punishment as more lenient than their own. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t consider that a double standard either, as both are getting punished, just in a way that works for them.
I think it depends on what the intention behind the internet policy is. At my last job, there were concerns about limited bandwidth, so streaming wasn’t allowed. Similarly, certain types of websites, like social media and email, were banned, and obviously any NSFW types of sites. There weren’t any particular issues with checking the news or doing a little bit of shopping or forums as long as it didn’t interfere with work.
So, applying that to the situation above. If both employees were just doing a little bit of personal stuff, then it’s not a double standard at all, as it obviously wasn’t affecting the performance of one, but may have been affecting the performance of the other. OTOH, if both employees were caught streaming or surfing for inappropriate content, then both should be punished appropriately, regardless of performance.
Frankly, I think it’s generally unethical to apply double standards. If you feel you need to, then I think the rules in place probably need to be rethought. And that’s exactly what I was trying to outline above, like do whatever you want on the internet, within reason, as long as you still perform. Since that’s the exact same standard for both individuals, it’s not a double standard.
More often, the type of stuff I’ve seen would be things like relaxed dress code for favored employees, or based on gender/attractiveness. Seriously, I’d seen situations where some attractive women had gotten to wear clearly inappropriate stuff for office work (eg, exposed midriff), while some of the unfavored men get yelled at for even wearing jeans.
And speaking personally, I generally don’t care if I get the short end of a double standard, as long as I don’t feel like I’m getting shafted. By that, I mean, as long as I’m not held to a uniquely tougher standard than everyone else. If one person gets something special, I’m not upset at them, I’m upset at the supervisor for obviously allowing his preferences to affect his decisions.
As already mentioned, defining your terms would help here. Is it a double standard when the police officer only arrests the people who violate the law and lets the other folks continue about their business? Of course not, and I don’t mean to intentionally play dumb here, but I’m leery of “we all know what kind of double standards we’re talking about”. In many cases where a double standard once prevailed as the norm, folks saw it as akin to the police officer only arresting the lawbreakers, in other words as a reasonable and necessary distinction and not an unfair treatment of Group A differently than Group B.
There’s a good case in point. Some people see the sexuallly predatory attention of an older male teacher towards a 15 year old female student as an inherently different behavior than when the sexes are reversed. Others would cite any treatment of one sex differently than the treatment accorded to the other as the perfect example of an unacceptable double standard. (Grrr!'s unspoken assumption is that boys and girls are different not just treated different. That is not a non-controversial assertion).
I think some racial double standards are justified by history. Black people using the N word while white people can’t, for instance. I also think affirmative action qualifies as a double standard, but I also think it’s justified because of the inherent advantages white and asian people have in academia and the job market.
P.S. - Not that it should matter, but I’m white.
Well, ISTM that the better policy here would be to write up both employees but give the good one a few extra write ups before firing her.
I think part of the problem with “double standards” is the concept that life is some sort of mathematical equation and there is perfect logic in the answer and there is only ONE correct answer.
At best that might be true but I would argue that there are plenty of variables unaccounted for.
At worst, I’d say the premise that things can always be solved like a math problem is bogus to start with.
Even though I wrote up my example up as a hypothetical, it actually isn’t. At my workplace, we have a number of rules that everyone violates at one time or another. Like the internet policy (we are only allowed 30 minutes of non-work related internet usage).
HR could go after everyone. But this probably isn’t practical (not enough HR staff). The bigger reason they don’t do this, however, is that workplace morale would plummet if everyone got in trouble for trivial offenses.
So what do they do? They go after the folks that have already been flagged as problematic. You’ve got an employee who is driving everyone nuts? You let HR know about it and they will find all the workplace violations that person has committed. The survelliance data has already been collected. It’s just a matter of putting it together.
I had a coworker who was once “written up” for a very trivial offense. I do not think it’s just coincidence that he is the least popular person in the department. A friend of mine who works in my HR department confirmed my suspicions.
Just as background, I work for state government. I’m guessing many of our workplace rules are designed to keep us from looking like slackers in the public eye (a government worker surfing the web on the taxpayers’ dime doesn’t look good.) So they may seem ridiculous, but I do think they serve a useful purpose.
What about unattractive older female teacher? Does that seem more likely to be about emotional manipulation to you, and if so, does that change how you feel?
I think these actual cases are a lot more emotionally messy and destructive than in people’s fantasies of what it would have been like, had it been them with that one emotionally healthy hot teacher that never would have fucked them, really, because emotionally healthy women don’t generally do that.
Don’t imagine if Ms. so-and-so had fucked you. Imagine if the most emotionally unstable pycho ex-girlfriend you’ve ever known had been your 10th grade teacher and fixated on you.
That would raise the destruction wrought, but wouldn’t that alleviate some of the culpability on behalf of the teacher since she suffers from psychological issues outside of her control?
I would feel more “outrage” towards a sane woman just looking to get her kicks off at the expense of manipulating a younger mind.
Either way; We shouldn’t base our justice system off the level of emotional turmoil we feel towards someone after they commit a crime. Same crime; Same time.
On intellectual capacities.
Often companies have a “no-tolerance” sexual harassment policy but the problem we deal with in the special needs community is we have these young men with say autism or some other issue and while they have work skills, they lack good judgement skills. We get them trained and into a job but you can almost bet that sooner or later they will say something wrong to a female and they have to fire them.
This comes down to 2 things:
- They will “say what is on their minds” and it will be like “nice boobs”.
- They misunderstand and misinterpret friendly relations as being personal and some woman who is friendly and nice to him and he will get his signals crossed and think its more and then we have a harassment problem.
Now in case #1, some women understand them and can look them in the eye and say “Jim, you cant say that” and brush it off. Heck I heard of one case where the young man said it to a female CEO and she just brushed it off. Others, they immediately go to their boss and the young man is fired, blowing hours of job training work.
In the case of #2 a company needs to give their workers training in interaction. NEVER hug or touch and limit personal contact and keep all conversations short and professional.
In the Army, and I think in the US military as a whole, women are held to lower physical fitness standards than men. (And also, older people of both sexes are held to lower standards than their younger peers.)
I originally thought this was bullshit. But I posted the question in Great Debates once and kind of saw the other side’s point. Being able to do 42 pushups, 63 situps and run 2 miles in 15 minutes doesn’t make you a better soldier. But it does ensure you meet some minimum standard of “fitness”. So the idea in the military is for everyone to be “fit” according to their own age and sex standards, not that everyone should be able to do the same amount of pushups because it’s necessary for their job.
Combat isn’t a pushup contest. But it does require some minimum standard of fitness and health, which incidentally depends on your age and sex. So I think the double standard in this case is fair. I don’t know if it’s necessary, but it is justified.
“Everybody is allowed to get a learner’s permit and then try to pass the driver’s license exam, if they are over 16.”
This is just fine, as there’s a single standard applying to everybody.
“You are allowed to get a learner’s permit and then try to pass the driver’s license exam. Unless you are under 16, that is, in which case you aren’t allowed.”
This is terrible, it’s a double standard.
I think the question sometimes has more to do with phrase usage and definitions than with ethics.
When I was 16, I had sex with my 28 year old manager and it was awesome.
I think being able to brush off most double standards is a form of growing up and maturity.