Double Standard Quotes That Will Make You Morally Outraged

Double standards are hard to avoid in 2021; they are all around us, especially for females, young people, people of color, or the poor.

If you fit into all four of these groups then you are likely exhausted from constantly seeing the unfairness all around you.

You probably do not need examples from me, but I am going to offer just a few for everyone else.

There are plenty of double standard quotes about men and women, so I won’t spend too much time delving into that because the sayings do a great job illustrating the point!

Let’s take a look at the rest though.

Have you ever encountered an old person who was just completely (insert whatever word here) rude, insensitive, perverted, and just downright unpleasant?

Whenever they do get called out on this behavior, the answer is always the same: ‘I am old, I deserve to say what I want.”

The truth is, everyone should be able to speak their mind, regardless of age, and it can be accomplished without being quite so cranky.

If it is good for the old goose, it should be good for the young goose, too!

Keep reading for more examples of unjust double standards, and double standard quotes about everything from politics to profound life experiences!

Don’t forget to also check out these judgmental quotes with deep meanings.

If you enjoy this article, check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily motivation. 

Browse our entire collection of inspirational quotes for more motivating ideas and concepts.

Double standard quotes about men and women

1. “We have a double standard, which is to say, a man can show how much he cares by being violent see, he’s jealous, he cares a woman shows how much she cares by how much she’s willing to be hurt; by how much she will take; how much she will endure; how suicidal she’s prepared to be.” ― Andrea Dworkin

You will also enjoy our article on spy quotes.

2. “The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favored with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men.” ― H. L. Mencken

3. “I will not calm down! Women are allowed to get angrier than men about double standards.” ― Liz

4. “It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft

5. “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” ― Jane Austen

6. “Now look, all I’m trying to say is that there are lots of things that a man can do, and in society’s eyes it’s all hunky-dory. A woman does the same things—the same thing mind you—and she’s an outcast…All I’m saying is why let this deplorable system seep into our courts of law where women are supposed to be equal.” ― Katharine Hepburn

7. “All a woman has to do is to slip once and she’s a tramp. A man can kill, lie, cheat…” ― Joan Crawford

8. “When a man gives his opinion, he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch.” ― Bette Davis

9. “The women always get blamed. Have you noticed that? The wives are nags. The mistress is a bitch for betraying the sisterhood. And the men just fall through the cracks in between. We expect so little from our boys, don’t we, Grace?” ― Louise O’Neill, The Surface Breaks

10. “She was flabbergasted by the backward thinking of humankind. The damaging double standards that fueled gender disparity infuriated her.” ― Wiss Auguste, The Illusions of Hope

These double standard quotes will help you spot one a mile away

11. “Morality is what the queen expects from the hive, not from herself.” ― Marty Rubin

12. “It is forbidden to kill; therefore, all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” ― Voltaire

13. “Ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” ― St. Matthew

14. “’Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, / When discontent sits heavy at my heart.” ― Joseph Addison

15. “My mother told me, you don’t have to put anything in your mouth you don’t want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards.” ― Sarah Millican

16. “We weep for a bird’s cry, but not for a fish’s blood. Blessed are those with a voice.” ― Mamoru Oshii

17. “I think it sucks that in our country [the USA] there is such a double standard education-wise. Which part of the city you live in, or something like that, determines if you’ll be successful, and that’s not fair.” ― Charles Barkley

Double standard quotes in politics and other professions

18. “When I kiss a girl for a part, people think it’s sexy. But if two guys kiss, suddenly there’s a backlash. It’s a double standard.” ― Olivia Wilde

19. “I think we cannot have a double standard. We cannot see our art as different from the reality. We cannot use two different sets of judgment.” ― Ai Weiwei

20. “There’s a double standard between writers and readers. Readers can be unfaithful to writers anytime they like, but writers must never ever be unfaithful to the readers.” ― Peter Schjeldahl

21. “We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people’s policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country.” ― Hubert H. Humphrey

22. “A politician is a man who will double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.” ― Oscar Levant

23. ”It’s a double standard. They say these management guys are so valuable. They are not. This is typical corporate greed.” ― Bobby De Pace

24. “I think there will always be a double standard between males and females, so I think that an actress is more likely to protect her public persona, so to speak, than an actor would be.” ― Mila Kunis

25. “There is a double-standard between men and women. My father was a major league baseball player, and I grew up thinking I could have the same attitude on the field that he did. When I did that in real life, people thought I was a total bi-atch.” ― Katie Uhlaender

26. “If I dare to tear up or shed a tear, then I’m criticized for that as well! It’s a horrible double standard, but quite frankly, I don’t have time enough to fight that battle and fight crime. I chose to fight crime and ignore the rest. I just keep going to the best I can.” ― Nancy Grace

27. “Michelle Pfeiffer hasn’t been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn’t like what a woman her age is offered. That’s a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn’t work the other way around.” ― Denzel Washington

28. “Fox doesn’t treat me any differently, and that’s one thing I’m very lucky with – my network treats me like a woman, but they never make me feel like I don’t fit in or anything like that, which is great. But within the industry, yeah. It’s a double standard, but it’s something that you have to deal with or try to make better; turn into a positive.” ― Erin Andrews

29. “You hear things like, ‘People shouldn’t know about your life because you’re creating an illusion on-screen.’ But I don’t see other actresses going to great lengths to hide their heterosexuality. That’s an unfair double standard.” ― Elliott Page

30. “No one is talking about the man behind the ass. It was a lot of ‘Miley twerks on Robin Thicke,’ but never, ‘Robin Thicke grinds up on Miley.’ They’re only talking about the one that bent over. So, obviously, there’s a double standard.” ― Miley Cyrus

31. “I’m amazed at the adolescent nature of some of the religious fanatics in our government. And they’re full of double standards.” ― Dar Williams

Short, but profound, double standard quotes and sayings

32. “People can’t handle the truth unless you speak to them with a mirror.” ― Lakia Echols

33. “Single vision produces worse illusions than double vision or many-headed monsters.” ―

Donna J. Haraway

34. “Let’s not have a double standard. One standard will do just fine.” ― George Carlin

35. “All I can say is, if you cannot ride two horses, you have no right in the circus.” ― James Maxton

36. “Most people sell their souls and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.” ― Logan Pearsall Smith

37. “We live behind our faces, while they front for us.” ― Michael Korda

38. “Some people’s blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.” ― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

39. “Treat all as your own self. Do not have a double standard.” ― Sathya Sai Baba

40. “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?” ― Abraham Lincoln

Thought-provoking double standard quotes about life and relationships

41. “Leaders scan the future so it can be free of doubts and fear. They do so by not living a double standard life in the present.” ― Israelmore Ayivor

42. “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” ― Oscar Wilde

43. “We cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.” ― John F. Kennedy

44. “The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.” ― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

45. “We always blame the woman when a man falls in love, as though no man had the courage of his inclinations.” ― Samuel Taylor

46. “Apparently, when it’s two people, it’s quirky and funny, but when it’s a person doing the same stuff on her own, it’s rebellious and antisocial.” ― Katie Alender

47. “When I see you, I think “I wonder which face she sees when she looks into the mirror.”” ― C. JoyBell C.

48. “Many of us believe that wrongs aren’t wrong if it’s done by nice people like ourselves.” ― Unknown

49. “A man can define many things beautifully in his life, but his character is one beautiful thing that can define him instantly and completely.” ― Anuj Somany

50. “We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach.” ― Bertrand Russell

Double Standard Quotes Worth Remembering 

51. “People of double standards never experience happiness.” ― Sam Veda

52. “I spend some of my time brooding about people who seem addicted to double standards. Those who take an allegedly principled stand on a Monday, then switch firmly to the opposite principle on Tuesday if it is to their advantage.” – John Leonard

53. “I’m shocked at the sexism and double standard coming out of the far right.”

— Barbara Mikulski

54. “If I knew me as somebody else, I would hate me just as much. Why have a double standard?” — David Wong

55. Many women have made the mistake of changing their beliefs to accommodate their work; it must be the other way around. No circumstance is so unusual that it demands a double standard or separates us from our faith. No matter how fast the world changes, exemplary values must remain constant. — Mary Kay Ash

56. In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them. — W. H. Auden

57. “If you’re gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.” ― Marilyn Monroe

58. “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” – Oscar Wilde

59. “Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.” ― Oliver Wendell Holmes

60. It’s true that in Cuba there are double standards, there’s opportunism, and there is a lack of freedom in some ways. — Fernando Perez

Double Standards Quotes On How Unfair Life Situations Can Get

61. “There is this double standard. The losses are larger in other areas of the tax code, but somehow a different standard gets applied to this.” – Robert Greenstein

62. “History is filled with double standards: a man who uses a woman is colored an ass, yet a woman who uses a man is hailed as resourceful.” – Ken Poirot

63. “There is a double-standard. And quite often if you’re from Africa, if you’re from a developing country, you’ll be executed. There aren’t that many people protesting or making a big fuss. But our State Department and the media if you’re a Westerner will make a big fuss” – Dick Atkins

64. “There’s definitely a whole double standard. I don’t understand it. A guy can be sexy and good looking, and it totally just enhances his credibility as an athlete.” – Lolo Jones

65. “Once you’ve lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It’s a mentality, a double standard of existence.” – John Le Carre

66. “I love young men, lots of them, your ancient masculine double standard.” – Vera Miles

67. “For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.” – Noam Chomsky

68. “If liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.” – Burt Prelutsky

69. “Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him — or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.” ― Dorothy L. Sayers

70. “Beauty provokes harassment, the law says, but it looks through men’s eyes when deciding what provokes it.” ― Naomi Wolf

Double Standards Quotes For People With Different Personalities

71. “People who have double standards are bullies who always play victim.” ― De philosopher

72. “Don’t tell them they can’t do something, and then turn around and do it yourself. Double standards aren’t fair to anyone.” ― Emily Smith

73. “Be the same person privately publicly and personally.” ― Judah Smith

74. “It’s very clear that there’s a lot of double standards going on.” ― Jamie Oliver

75. “A person may be noted by the standards he flaunt ostentatiously, but is known by the double standards that unveils his true disposition subconsciously.” ― Manas Madrecha

76. “There can be a little bit of double standard in some offices about this. When men have pictures of family, people think, ‘How sweet.’ But when women have those same pictures, there might be the question of where her attention and where her focus are.” ― Marjorie Brody

77. “I think it’s a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it’s literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it’s romance, or a beach book – in short, it’s something unworthy of a serious critic’s attention.” ― Jennifer Weiner

78. “I have really tried my best to ignore any double standard. I can’t control the expectations of other people. I can control my attitude and my energy, and that’s always been very positive.” ― Beth Mowins

79. “There is a double standard out there. Comedy is a male business; it’s not ladylike what we’re doing. But at the end of the day, if it’s funny, it’s funny, and funny tends to quite the criticisms.” ― Wanda Sykes

80. “People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wants the whole world to admire the country for its democracy. Then the government sends out its army, in the name of this democracy, and leaves behind the kind of chaos we see in Iraq.” ― Jacob Zuma

Double Standard Quotes For Pretenders

81. “The person portrayed and the portrait is two entirely different things.” — Jose Ortega y Gasset.

82. “When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out.” — Otto von Bismarck

83. “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion all have a double aspect – freedom of thought and freedom of action.” — Frank Murphy.

84. “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.” — Socrates

85. “Politeness – the most acceptable hypocrisy.” — Ambrose Bierce

86. “I will never deny that life isn’t fair. It seems as though when a woman leaves a man, she is strong and independent, but when a man leaves a woman, he is a pig and a jerk.” — Criss Jami

87. “I really hate two-faced people. It’s hard to decide which face to slap first.” — Yong Junhyung

88. “Women really are not supposed to be imaginative. That creativity of this kind is supposed to belong to men. You know, because women make babies. I find the double standards shocking.” — Siri Hustvedt

89. “Hypocrisy is the outward acknowledgment of inward shame.” — Norman MacDonald

90. “They are all innocent until proven guilty, but not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.” — Louise O’Neill.

What did you learn from these double standard quotes?

There are examples of double standards between people of color and white people around us, multiple times a day.

I will use the latest I just heard of where a black realtor and his black client were arrested during a house showing.

Why does this keep happening, and when will the double standard stop?

I don’t have the answer, but the world is watching and the majority of us are disgusted that this is where we are as humans.

If you live with the fear of racial double standards like this every day, just know that you are not alone, and I hope the end of this era is near.

How many more wealthy people of privilege get to get away with stuff the rest of us do not?

I paid thousands of dollars in taxes as a family of four with two children, while some who makes much more (like supposedly a billion dollars more) pays several hundred dollars?

How is that right?

Or a celebrity gets a slap on the wrist for a crime that someone else would have done jail time for?

Sadly, this economic double standard is insidious and even affects health care and food choices.

How do we end these double standards?

Well, on a small scale whenever you encounter a double standard you should always opt for open and honest communication.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask the person applying the double standard to explain why they think that behavior is acceptable.

Ask them how they would feel if someone else applied similar double standards toward them.

Maybe if enough of us do that, it will work on a bigger scale too…

What’s your biggest takeaway from these double standard quotes and sayings?

If you have a personal example of a double standard you would like to share, you can use the comment section below!