But see, Phil, I don't think what you are talking about is double standards - not as I define it. Treating people differently based on ability is not double standards, it is different standards. In a basic definition double standard can just mean different treatment but it is more commonly used as a negative term and implies an unjust different treatment. And, knowing Drifter, I have a feeling that it is that narrower definition he's talking about.
See, I disagree... the notion that double standards is a bad thing is kind of a modern PC pollyannaish view.
The only time I hear about people complaining about a double standard... they only mention ONE HALF of the double standard.
For example- feminists went on a tear over the "double standard" of men screwing women on the side as being acceptable, but not women screwing on the side.
But that very characterization is a lie.
First... Genetically, every woman has the assurance that the child she births is HERS...
Men do not have any such assurance... when it comes to their mere seed... it becomes inconsequential... when it comes to any legacy they might leave behind, they are demanding of women a level of fidelity that merely increases the chances that their children are really theirs.
Women do better, genetically, by investing their lot with ONE man who can provide for their children ( even if they have an occasional child by another male unbeknownst to their husbands )
But reproduction poses a much more severe risk for the woman than the man...
In western civilization of the past few hundred years, women who kept having children ended up dying in childbirth and some step mother ended up taking whatever legacy there was for HER children.
Women leanred to stop having sex once they had secured a reasonable family.... this is how they ensured any legacy benefited THEIR children.
Men faced with doing without were not gonna take that deal...
The double standard that evolved was that wives would turn a blind eye to DISCRETE philandering in exchange for the social norm that their husbands would NOT abandon them.
Men agreed to this with the norm that owmen would (ostensibly) Not be cheating and making a man pay to raise some other man's child.
This was such a strong social norm that if a husband DID abandon a wife, the divorce penalties were SUBSTANTIAL.
For hundreds of years this double standard WORKED. It Gave BENEFITs to BOTH parties... the benefits they, each, valued most.
So you see... every single
alleged double standard is an evolved social accommodation predicated in the fact that our circumstances are not equivalent, And our goals differ.
As our circumstance change, these accommodations must change to reflect the shift in power.
Just as the advent of the birth control pill enabled women to be more sexual thru their whole lives... and thus changed the entire foundation of the infamous sexual double standard ...
Women rather suddenly started demanding fidelity from their husbands that prior generations would have found ludicrous.
Yet they wanted to KEEP the punitive divorce laws the penalized husband that abandoned their wives.
This was not in any way making life MORE FAIR... it was a naked and unapologetic power grab by women, because they had been , for the first time, handed a new power over their reprodcutive biology.
This same power meant that they were not necessarily relegated to popping out babies if they had a love life, which meant that, for the first time, they
could pursue careers...
Again.... the circumstances changed, and so society had to re-negotiate a NEW standard in light of this shift in circumstances.
I can not even imagine a society where there is not going to exist SOME disparity in power, objective, ability or will.
A world without double standards is a world of uniformity... of no gender, no excellence, no advantage, no gifts.
An oppression of mediocrity and sameness... all of us wanting the same things for the same reasons and with the exact same abitlites...
Its bad enough how many people are slaves to fashion... how many bought SUVs, or Uggs... cause everyone else was doing it...
There is no narrative without want, without the drama of objective and obstacle.
There is no fairness without accommodation of our differences.