Double Standards

Let’s talk about double standards and how these have become normalised in our society, culture and workplaces. Females are often labelled as difficult or too emotional if they display signs of assertiveness or become upset or angry about something. Yet, these are normal emotions displayed by male and female genders. Why is it acceptable to label a female as emotional even though males display the same emotions such as anger, frustration, happiness, sadness, anxiety and depression? Women are often hormonal and is out of their control as their bodies produce certain chemicals and hormones that can evoke emotions and various emotional responses that often are surprising due to the intensity experienced at times.

It often takes very little to label a female as difficult when they are a strong alpha female – they know what they want, they know what they are worth, are ambitious, educated and are skilled, experienced and good at their jobs. Whereas men are described in a positive light when they display these same characteristics. When a woman exerts boundaries and standards, they are often labelled as difficult. The can also be judged by other females as “bitchy” or aggressive because they dare to be ambitious and go after they want instead of being submissive which is what a patriarchal society states a woman needs to be. In my experience as a female in a minority ethnic group, which I also feel is incorrectly labelled as Asians account for about 60% of the world’s population. As at 15th January 2024, the Asian population was 4,770,370,058 based on the latest United Nations estimates which is a lot of people!

Back to my point of my experience as an Asian female, the double standards are not only social but also layered with cultural conditioning. Asian females are supposed to be submissive, they are supposed to serve the males first in the household regardless of age. The females are supposed to work but not earn more or be in a higher status position than their partner. Asian females also age differently to Western and European people and are often underestimated because their age is assumed based on how they may look. However, like any other nationality – Caucasian, European or Middle Eastern, the way someone looks cannot be changed. An Asian cannot look any less Asian due to their genes any more than a Caucasian can look any less Caucasian due to their genetic makeup.

Another double standard is it takes very little for a woman to be labelled a bad or unfit mother, yet it takes very little for a male to be labelled a great dad. Often, mothers are juggling careers, household duties, carer and parenting responsibilities. This takes a toll on how much a person, let alone a woman can juggle. Research shows that even in egalitarian marriages, women still do more housework than men (4.6 hours for women vs. 1.9 hours for men per week). Egalitarian marriages are those where the husbands and wives each contribute approximately half of the couple’s combined earnings. However, even in these egalitarian marriages, women still do less leisure activities (3.5 hours less than males), less paid work (3 hours less than males) but more caregiving duties as well (almost 2 hours more including tending to children). So, even in egalitarian marriages, the double standard still applies. Domestic duties are not a woman’s responsibility – they are life skills that need to be learned by any gender. If you cannot prepare yourself a meal regardless of gender, you will starve. If you cannot clean and organise your living spaces, regardless of gender then you will live in disarray.

How can we normalise males taking their share of the domestic, parenting and caregiving activities? They are also parents, they also have parents and other family members that they can help provide caregiving. If women earn more than their partners, it makes more sense for the male to take paternity leave and be the stay at home parent. In my experience, I have worked with female colleagues who have said their husband/partner/spouse is the stay at home parent because it made more financial sense for them to be working as they earned more. Women are also ambitious, women are also well educated, highly skilled and have the same qualifications as men. Women are capable in their jobs and often have to prove themselves harder in a corporate environment than males.

Another double standard that exists is when a female needs to take time off work to take their child to the doctor, school event or any type of appointment. It is often looked down on even though they give 100% at any other time as do their male counterparts. Yet, it is often perceived as normal for a male to take time off work for a dental or doctor appointment or take his car for a service. When a male needs to take time off to take a child to any type of appointment or school event, they are labelled as a “good dad” even if it is the only time they have done so and the mother has done this every other time. Another double standard that exists is when a female takes paternity leave when they have a baby. They take time off to be the primary caregiver, they have given life, they are nurturing and caring for the new life they have brought into the world which often comes with its own set of challenges, the duration of paternity leave is viewed as a step backward or stalling their career. However, the skills and experience the female has gained do not diminish due to having a baby and taking paternity leave to look after their child. However, they are often penalised when returning to work.

The absence from the workplace is often viewed as a deficit in their career. When males take paternity leave or extended leave from the workplace and return to work, they do not encounter the same prejudice as a female in the same position. In my experience, even when I did some consulting and contract work during my time out of permanent full-time work, when returning back to the corporate world, even though my skills and experience were kept current, I still had to work my way back up the ladder. I fell into contract work by accident and it became a blessing in disguise at it allowed me more flexibility to pick and choose the industries and variety of projects and roles to work in. It allowed me to expand across industries, transfer my skills to various projects and keep my skills and experience current with new technology, accreditations and qualifications – both formal and informal.

Let’s normalise conversations to remove these double standards and call out behaviour we feel is contrary to what we’d like to see for future generations. What is the standard you’d like to see? What are the normalised behaviours you want to condone? We need to be the change we want to see in the world, as Ghandi is quoted as saying. If we remain silent, we reinforce the social, cultural and family conditioning that we may not want to see. How can you disrupt the status quo? Let’s normalise conversations around calling out behaviour we feel is not conducive to positive change – whether this is in the workplace, home, family or society.