Double standard

A double standard, according to the World Book Dictionary, is a standard applied more leniently to one group than to another. For example, the belief that it is permissible for teenage boys, but not teenage girls, to engage in premarital sex is a double standard. While double standards are generally condemned in the abstract, they are also very common.

When judicial processes are applied more strictly to some people more than others, such double standards are seen as unjust because they violate a basic maxim of modern legal jurisprudence, that all parties should stand equal before the law. Double standards also violate the principle of justice known as impartiality, which is based on the assumption that the same standards should be applied to all people, without regard to subjective bias or favoritism based on social class, rank, ethnicity, gender or other distinction. A double standard violates this principle by holding different people accountable according to different standards.

There is a subtle distinction to be made between double standards and hypocrisy, which implies the stated or presumed acceptance of a single standard, but which in practice may be disregarded. If a man believes it is his right to have extra-marital affairs, but that his wife does not have such a right, he holds a double standard. A man who condemns all adultery while maintaining a mistress is a hypocrite.