Why we need (some) double standards for men and women

Treating men and women as though they’re exactly the same leads to barbarism

There’s something I’ve noticed for a long time that I’ve really wanted to name clearly, and name out loud:

Sometimes it’s OK that there are double standards for men and women.

Obviously, I know that’s a provocative ideological nuclear bomb to drop on the internet, so I hope you’ll respect me biding my time in going down this route. At any rate, buckle up, because here we go:

I don’t know how many people are ready for this conversation, but the conservative lament of double standards between men and women sometimes completely misses the point of what’s wrong with feminism in the first place.

To be clear, I firmly believe that the cruel cynicism, blindness, and hypocrisy of feminism within a liberal framework is agonizingly awful and that the widespread impact in our culture of such sick and dehumanizing views towards men is one of the greatest ills of the 20th Century (which is really saying something). As I hope you well know at this point if you’re familiar with my arguments.

It can be plainly hypocritical for women to fail to hold themselves to the standard they’re holding men, and I think any honest, mature woman would agree we’ve all done this ourselves many times.

It’s the dire need within us for love that loves neighbor like we love ourselves, which is why the principal commandment of our Lord is to do so, as this is the same with loving Him. I’ve repented of failing this standard more times than I can count.

It’s only by His grace that we can do this. This is the Gospel for all men and women, each of us unique and binarily sexed image-bearers of the Christian God.

So, it is right and good to have this primary, foundational standard between men and women.

But the fatal error I believe a lot of people make (and I used to a lot, too) is to inadvertently argue for men and women to be held to the same standard by society as a whole, all the time, when feminists are not doing so themselves.

This is an argument made from the stance of what Christina Hoff Sommers calls “equity feminism,” the original belief that men and women should have all the same rights in society. I don’t believe feminism ever stood for this, while Sommers does, but you can check out her book and the ones I agree with more on this list to delve more into the history of feminism:

Five must-read books on the real history of feminism

Personally, I do not believe in feminism because I think it’s wrong to seek equality, i.e., blindness to sex in all matters of law and social standards. I think this is very wrong and an impossible standard with which to achieve rights or justice for women.

So, when someone tells me, “I believe in real equality, like women being drafted if they want to vote.”

I do not believe in “equality” between the sexes because I don’t think it’s possible. There is always going to be a different standard for men and women in a society that acknowledges that men and women are different, and that women are not weak, but certainly weaker and more vulnerable than men.

The reason women shouldn’t be in combat is because it’s far more dangerous and they’re simply less useful. It’s wrong. The issue isn’t that it’s unfair that men have to be drafted and women still get to vote. The issue is that it’s wrong to put women in the military unless they voluntarily choose to do so, and even then, it does not make any earthly sense to put them in combat.

We’ve also seen very naturally assumed “double standards” play out, and rightly so, in the outrage over people who identify as transgender playing in girls’ and women’s sports, with little attention given to the likely far biological females trying to compete in boys’ and men’s sports.

We all understand that it is far more barbaric and wrong to allow a fully mature man to compete against women, because we all understand that men have significant physical and hormonal advantages over women.

We all understand that allowing men into women’s private spaces is worse than allowing women into men’s private spaces, and while I think both sexes need private spaces that the other ought to be disallowed from without anyone getting offended, it is for different reasons.

We do not want men in women’s locker rooms because we do not want them to assault the women.

We do not want women in men’s locker rooms because we do not want the men to assault the women.

In both of these cases, the reason is to protect women from the overwhelming power men have over women, to violate their dignity if they so choose.

Of course a woman can violate a man’s dignity too, and one of the sickest forms of feminist double-standard is the joke crass modern women make of literally sexually harassing or sexually assaulting men.

At the same time, the reason that society is generally less offended by women being vulgar and inappropriate towards men is that men can usually more easily physically overpower a woman than a woman can a man.

And here we arrive at the core lack of logic in feminism as a whole, actually: much of its grievances are based on the very fact that men are clearly stronger and more powerful than women.

Both feminists and adherents of traditional Christian ethics like myself believe that men should not abuse that power.

That is why there are going to be double standards for men and women sometimes, and they’re not always going to be wrong.

Women are always going to need certain protections in society, and so they are always going to have certain privileges. Men are always going to be stronger than women in society, and so they are always going to have a distinct advantage. Trying to fight against this is the ultimate barbarism of all the succeeding barbarisms that try to treat women as though they are the same as men.