This week, the target of public attacks on social networks by a group of men who claim to be Christians. The reason? Her sexual past – which, according to them, would disqualify her to defend chastity today. The episode, ironically, occurred during Holy Week, a holiday that symbolizes forgiveness and reconciliation. The scene wide a rule: the double sexual standard follows firm.
If not one who today militates for purity and chastity is immune to moral vigilance, the problem is clearly not behavior. It is the genre. And this selectivity is far from being new. A meta-analysis with over 120,000 participants showed that while many people say treating sexual behaviors in the same way in men and women, implicit judgments continue to favor them. Male attitudes are perceived as normal or even desirable; The female, as a deviation. The effect is not dramatic, but it is persistent – and stronger in contexts with less gender equality. In short: equality in the speech still lives with underground moral codes.
An experimental study found an even more revealing pattern: the one who most endorses the double standard are men with sexist attitudes – specially those who score high in hostile sexism. They are the first to police the sexuality of others while celebrating their own. When women, when discouraging casual sex between peers, tend to do so as a form of protection, an attempt to reduce social damage. It is not moralism. It is survival.
Jordana’s situation also wide the hypocrisy involved. Indignation is not born of a commitment to values, but from a public need to reaffirm status and authority. The goal is not to correct or guide, it is, above all, to frame. The purity that requires is not spiritual, is a social symbol used to regulate the body and wills of women.
It is even more paradoxical when considering the ethical pattern these environments claim to sustain. The Christian environment, by proposing high ideals of purity, should also be the first to practice forgiveness and welcome. But what is seen is the opposite: a moral that selectively punishes and ignores one’s own foundations. The error, for some, is never subject to reconciliation – less when committed by women.
And this logic is not limited to the religious field. The double sexual standard is a meeting point between very different groups – from that speak in chastity to those who celebrate (male) liberation. They differ in rhetoric, but share the same hierarchy. The ruler changes. The imbalance, no.
It is true that there have been legal and institutional advances in women’s rights. But the distance between these achievements and everyday culture remains great. The female reputation is still treated as public heritage – vigined, measured, evaluated – while many men follow with unrestricted freedom and almost no symbolic costs.
Of course there may be different views on sexual ethics. The point here is not what each defends, but how to choose to treat the other. Dignity cannot be conditional. Neither the privilege of those who have never made a mistake – as long as, in this digital court, the moral ruler often changes according to the defendant. What evidence shows is that the problem was never sex. It was and still who can choose freely or make mistakes, start and be treated like people after that.
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