Why do we love double standards?

In our culture, politics and everyday life double standards are prevalent in almost every avenue of our "desi" life.  For those of you who aren’t clued up on what double standards mean, an example is when a father tells her daughter to cover up from head to toe as a means of protecting the “honour” of his family but has no problem ogling at women or passing comments at them whenever he sees a pretty one.  The “double” aspect in double standards is that you have one standard for yourself to do as you please, one for another to do as you order, and they run together in this kind of strange parallel; avoiding each other but at times proving to be a source of great conflict.

There are many examples of double standards apart from the one I have given above.  The one that particularly irks me is that the men of our homes are allowed to have free reign on anything, going out anytime, returning home any time but the girls who are allowed to leave the house for education/work have to be home at a certain time.  I understand the whole reasoning behind it.  No matter how much we try and become more “open-minded”, people will always raise eyebrows if they see a girl coming home at all hours of the night or a girl who wears certain clothes which aren’t befitting to our culture.  It seems to be behavior that even Westerners indulge in.  If a woman wears tight clothes, reveals a lot and generally likes to party a lot she is (mistakenly) seen as a “loose” woman or an “easy” girl, even though she is just exercising her “freedom” and enjoying her life.  It seems that wherever you go in the world, double standards regarding women are subtle in some areas and blatant in others.  I mean, in the West, a woman can work, educate, go out, party, drink, have sex with strangers but she will be seen as a “slut” if she openly does this without shame.  But if a man was to behave in the same manner, he is applauded as some kind of hero to the masses.  Is this the equality feminists envisaged for themselves? It reeks of double standards!

Nowadays, the situation has changed somewhat. A woman has to act like she doesn’t give a crap if people call her a “slut” and the media now portrays rich women who indulge in hedonistic behavior as a kind of goal for other girls to copy. Examples? Well, Kim Kardashian (hardly a nun is she?), Paris Hilton – who actually made money from her sex tape! Pretty much the whole cast of Jersey Shore whose main raison d’etre is to party, get laid, go to the gym in a sick cycle and now ofcourse, our very own British version, Geordie Shore.  Then the media, government and concerned moms complain about an exponential rise in teenage pregnancy.  It reeks of double standards! The same media that glorifies all things “slutty” is the one that denigrates young girls who get pregnant.  How does that even make sense? It is the men who are in influential positions in the media who want to see us reveal our bodies and lower our inhibitions but see teenage mothers as a “burden” to the society because they produced children out of wedlock (shock! Horror!).  

I don’t know or really care how gora families cope with the concept of double standards, because I don’t live in that environment.  But I personally think it is a huge problem in our society and culture.  Even when visiting Pakistan, you see men ogling at women who dress in tight clothes or wear jeans but if their own sister or daughters dress that way then they either use force against her or bar her from setting foot outdoors.  It makes the woman even more rebellious or unresponsive to male authority. 

Another really frustrating double standard is how sons, who are supposed to be the breadwinners of the family (or husbands), are out on the streets doing all kinds of awara gardi while the girls of the family are working hard, educating themselves and earning money for the home.  Recently, I have seen more and more examples of this in Pakistan and it is very disturbing to witness.  Even more so when the son is allowed to sleep to all hours of the day, contributing nothing to the family home and still has his mother do his washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning for him. He then expects his wife to be exactly as his mother in the levels of servitude she provides him but he is still as useless after getting married; whereas his wife probably holds a degree or masters and finds herself doing housework for a very ungrateful husband, instead of having a career and salary as she was used to.

If my son (if Allah (SWT) bestows me with one) were to behave in this manner.  I would kick him out of his bed after 10:30 am and beat him senseless with my own hands.  Yea…I would.  I would not have a care in the world for his “feelings” or the gel in his hair.  For him to think for a second that he would have me making breakfast after he has been out all night clubbing or doing avara gardi with his friends, would be foolish.  I would make him get up, clean his room, make his bed, do his laundry and before any of this, I would make sure he has a job.  Then if he wants to go out of the home with his friends, I would make sure I get the names of each friend and their numbers (if not directly from my son, then secretly from his phone…ha ha …evil right?).  If he doesn’t come home by maximum 12:00 pm, his friends will be called and I would shout all kinds of expletives at them (because shouting at the son over the phone never works but shouting at his friends would scare them shitless!!). If he doesn’t have a good enough explanation, he will get beats through some sort of instrument of pain – wooden spoon usually but at nighttime might need to use the broom stick.  You might be shocked reading this…but why are you? Isn’t this how our parents would behave if the girl is going out? Don’t parents take extra effort to find out who their daughter is going out with? What is her friend’s address and number? Where are they going? (only restaurant-NO CINEMA), what time will they be back? Or more like what time they HAVE TO BE back? Daughters are always told “we know you won’t be bad if you go out, we just don’t trust the boys around you to be good”…I find that to be a reasonable suggestion albeit a little indicative of trust issues.  That is why I would beat my boy senseless.  Because I would say to him “I know you will be bad when you leave this home, that is why I am protecting the other daughters/sisters (even if non-Muslim!) that you will ogle at from your behavior”.  If he has half a brain, he would understand. I will seriously make the life of my son a living hell (maybe, that’s why I am not a mother…ha ha ha). 

I understand that Allah (SWT) has given men a higher status than women by ONE DEGREE (miniscule amount – relax all feminists out there!).  Men do have to go out and work and earn money for the family to thrive, but when did this equate to “You can stay out all night and f*** around all you want”?  If he is going out to work or education then he can go.  But if he is going out to fool around then you stay at home just like the daughter would. Bring your friends over, have a family game night, go for a walk with your dad…I mean would that kill some guys out there?

So all in all, we must end this passionate love affair we have with double standards, pronto! I, for one, have seen these applied in front of my eyes and it makes me feel repulsed.  Allah (SWT) knows best as to the best way of raising our children.  All we can hope is to do Dua that they turn out to be gems and not morons.  Again, this all comes down to how they are raised.  Hopefully, I can get both daughter and son and treat them with equality, but also explain to them that they were both created differently to do different things.  Boys to educate themselves, seek a career and settle down and for girls to educate themselves, seek a career, settle down and raise children appropriately.  Allah (SWT) knows best.

Keep smiling people and I hope you enjoyed today’s installment. 

Would love to read your comments!