Follow the Format (as submitted to Highestwire)

Submitted by Liana Imam on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 at 09:59:02 AM EST.

America prides itself on being accepting, accommodating, and any other such word that begins with an A (just for alliteration’s sake). I wonder, though, if it achieved said pride before or after instilling innumerable double standards in its society.

Take even the briefest look into American society and you’ll see that it’s rife with them. It’s ridiculous. It’s disgusting, in fact. I guess by definition a double standard is supposed to be ridiculous and disgusting, somewhat of a shock, but really, I’m impressed by the degree to which they are taken sometimes in America.

The most obvious of double standards are the ones between men and women; there’s an absurd amount of them, and we, for whatever reason, always adher to them.

One of these is to do with age: while men are often older than the women they court or marry, you almost never hear of women marrying or even dating significantly younger men. A year or two, tops, is as much younger as women will go, if she would even consider it, and most don’t.

Then, there's the whole thing about the guy being taller. While this is something all 5’1” of me will never have to worry about, I know a handful of girls for which this unwritten rule sucks.

Another double standard is one a lot of high school kids struggle with (for good or bad, you can decide on your own): If a guy is with more than one girl in a night, he’s awesome (a "pimp," as they say). If a girl does the same thing, she’s easy and it’s gross.

I’m going to guess most, if not all of these stem from the traditional roles of men and women in society, but that doesn’t mean they should continue. We all fall victim to them, though. As a senior in high school, I would never think about dating a sophomore boy, though a guy I know is in a long relationship with a girl two years younger than him. It’s the same age difference, so why is only one scenario okay? I couldn’t tell you either.

Women are a proud people. The feminists of the group especially; the ones who like to boast about how much women have progressed throughout America’s history.

But have we really? Open a magazine and decide for yourself. Though we talk about equal rights and empowerment, the fact remains that there is no ERA in the Constitution and about seven ads in the front of every magazine portraying scantily clad women.

The fact remains that it doesn’t matter how much men talk about how they want a respectable partner, how appearance isn’t really the most important thing, how they really just want someone who can make them laugh … they still get wide-eyed-excited at Victoria’s Secret models and the illustrious Swimsuit Issue. Women are still widely viewed as sex objects in American culture, a place in society that (I’d be inclined to say) possibly puts us lower than we were when we started.

Sure girls, you can wear pants too now, but every time we photograph you in them, you’re going to be unbuttoning them, okay?

It’s gross, but it’s just another thing women deal with everyday, as if life isn’t hard enough without getting whistled at by construction workers.

One of my favorite double standards by far is coming up fast, and if you know anything about me, you’ll be expecting it. America is this big awesome altruistic (more A alliteration!) place, right? And the melting pot and everything, and it’s diverse and accepting.

So why racial profiling?

That’s right, I went there. If this country is so intent on letting in everyone, why do they make a point of excluding certain groups from that generality?

Formerly it was African Americans; now they’ve shifted the focus to Arabic and Islamic people.

This one I really don’t get. I will flat out never understand racism and how people of the modern era can look at someone and decide he or she is lower because of their particular tone of skin.

In any case, this double standard has been firmly in place since the birth of America, so I can’t imagine that it’s going away anytime soon.

I don't think there’s anything I can do about any of these. I’m not even going to pretend I have any brilliant ideas for changing up the status quo. Feel free to let me know if you have any, though, as I’ll be happy to pass them off as my own.

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