Gender Double Standards

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Recommended: gender expectations and sexual double standards

As one looks through society, one starts to see many cracks and loopholes where one set of standards does not apply the same way for men as it does to women, and vice versa.

One of the main and most discussed double standards when it comes to gender is the fact that men are praised for being promiscuous, while women are put down and called names. This double standard goes way back in the societal memory. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that these gender differences have resulted from males’ and females’ different reproductive capacities. A woman can go have sex with a man, but she then will be limited to carrying his baby for those nine months. In the meantime, the man can go out and have sex with many women, and have all of those women pregnant at the same time, thus resulting in multiple offspring. “Because men have greater reproductive capacities, it is considered beneficial for them to inseminate as many females as possible to maximize the survival of their offspring (Milhausen and Herold).” Still, the theory does not fully explain why women, even though they do not have the ability to spread their genes as quickly as men can, are expected to be sexually conservative. Perhaps the simplest explanation from an evolutionary standpoint is those women are sexually conservative because they are the ones that have to have the babies. Pregnancy is hard work, not to mention that if a woman sleeps around, she is bound to be unsure of whose baby she is carrying.

Despite the sound logic of the evolutionary argument, it does not account for what humans have had for a long time: contraception. This is why many people prefer to look at how this double standard formed from more of a sociological viewpoint. Women’s sexual con...

... middle of paper ...

...rer way of thinking when it comes to double standards for men and women. Until then, humans must learn to deal with these double standards to the best of their ability.

Works Cited

Crittenden, Ann. “Sixty Cents to A Man’s Dollar.” Reconstructing Gender. Ed. Estelle Disch. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 433-40. Print.

Eagleview USA Inc. "The Official Home of America's Fun Couple." 2009. 16 May 2010

Fielding, Nick. Top 10: "Dating Double Standards." Ask Men Mag., 8 April 2007. Web. 15 May 2010.

Jamison, Kathleen Hall. Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.

Magnus Hirshfeld Archive for Sexology. "The Double Standard." 15 May 2010

Milhausen, Robin R and Edward S Herold. "Does the Sexual Double Standard Still Exist? Perceptions of University Women." Find Articles. November 1999. Web. 15 May 2010

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