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A double standard, according to the World Book Dictionary, is a standard applied more leniently to one group than to another. For example, a belief that it is permissible for teenage boys, but not teenage girls, to engage in premarital sex is a double standard.

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 distinction to be made between double standards and hypocrisy, which implies the stated or presumed acceptance of a single standard a person claims to hold himself or herself accountable to, 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 pretends to condemn extramarital affairs while maintaining his mistress is a hypocrite.

Efforts to defend real or purported double standards usually take the form of denying that a double standard is being applied or attempting to give a good reason for the disparate treatment (in which case it is a double standard but it is a favorable or acceptable double standard).

For example, children are generally forbidden from acts such as using alcohol and tobacco products, while adults are usually permitted to perform such acts with impunity. This differential treatment could be described as a double standard, because people are being held to different standards. However, one defending this differential treatment could argue that there is a good reason for the different treatment: that children are inherently less capable of making mature decisions regarding those activities.

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The most common ethnic double standard in the United States is racism. For example, in the United States, it is widely considered that members of ethnic minorities can use racial epithets about their own race, while other races are not allowed to use those same words. Another ethnic double standard is that racial minorities can freely express pride for their race, while if a white person expresses white pride, he would be considered a racist.

One of the more common double standards that is seen every day is where females should be treated more leniently than males for the same acts. For example, physical violence; many females believe that they deserve to be given the right to hit a man, however, he should not be able to retaliate against that. These women say that they are physically weaker than men, therefore it is okay for them to attack men.[1] A counter-argument of this is that for two parties to be treated equally without discrimination, they should have the same consequences that they would receive if they were a different gender.^{[original research?]}

A notorious type of double standard is the classic "studs vs. sluts" model, in which a man who has sex with many female partners is considered a "stud" or "player" (which are often considered compliments), while a woman who has sex with many male partners is considered a "slut" or "skank" (which are highly pejorative terms).

In the context of religion, many argue that accusations of blasphemy are an especially common example of double standards in that the very concept of blasphemy relies on applying or seeking to apply different standards to the theology seeking protection than to other matters.

The ancient Roman aphorism, Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi (Gods may do what cattle may not), captures the idea of the way relatively relaxed norms of behavior are applied by the elite to themselves, while harsher behavior standards are applied to the masses.

Specific political examples are harder to give because almost no one, regardless of their position on the political spectrum, will admit to double standards. For example, many in the United States are quick to point fingers at the "liberal media" or "conservative media" for giving a 'pass' to one side of the political spectrum, while at the same time often slandering those on the other side of a given debate.

• Morality
• Self-deprecation
• Doublethink

• LilithGallery.com - 'Double Standard Sexuality', Suzanne MacNevin