Fed Up People Sound Off On The Double Standards That Irritate Them Most

Society is rife with double standards, and they can be really frustrating - discriminatory, even. We experience them every day, the question is, what do we do about them?

RxPharmChem asked, Hey Reddit: Which "double-standard" irritates you the most?

Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.

Hidden charges are most definitely a double standard.

The other day I got a new iPhone. I told the salesperson I didn't want to make any changes to my account. 2 days later I get an email saying congrats on signing up for cell phone insurance for 9.99 a month. Not once did this salesperson utter the words cell phone insurance.When a salesperson steals an extra $9.99 a month from me they call it cross-selling and don't see anything wrong with it.

There's a big double standard here.

Work over 12-15 hour day to get your project in by deadline is fine, but don't you dare show up 5 minutes late the next day.

(Salaried employee, paid based on a 40 hour week, trend towards 50-60 hours average)

Edit: Should point out that I love the job and feel I get paid a good rate. Just annoyed after getting called out by the sales staff who don't have to pull extended shifts.

Smoke breaks have always seemed, to me at least, a very strange double standard.

I work for a small business (8 employees). Smokers (4 of the 8 of us) are allowed "smoke breaks" whenever they feel like it (we aren't given regular coffee breaks or lunch) during which they aren't required to punch out or put anything other than, and I quote management here, "a reasonable time-limit on". I don't smoke, but I do like a bit of fresh air every now and then so I go outside for 3-5 minutes and check my email or read the news on my phone. This is completely unacceptable to my boss, because, and let me quote her directly again, "phones are an addiction that waste company time". I asked her why smokers aren't held to this standard and I was told: "smokers need to smoke, you don't need to read the news".

Mother Lily needs to reevaluate her standards.

A double standard imposed on me by my mother-in-law (conversation happened earlier):

Mother-in-law: If I ever catch you cheating on your wife, I'll cut you with a machete.

Me: (Silent)

Neighbor: But, Mother Lily, your sons are horndogs and have different children from different mothers. Are you gonna cut them, too?

Mother-in-law: Now, why would I cut my own sons?

PS. I don't cheat on my wife.

This seems relevant to our current time.

When contrarians claim they're open-minded, and yet are completely unwilling to listen to sound counterarguments.

Oh boy, the anti-medicine and anti-vaxxer crowds... sigh (FYI: paracetamol is acetaminophen, the pain killer in Tylenol).

My hippie friends who believe modern medicine is evil and that chemicals are dangerous, to the point of never taking paracetamol or even believing things like vaccines are bad (maybe I use the words 'friends' too broadly) but don't give a f*** about snorting something that they've bought from a guy they barely know. The irony is that most of that misc powder is probably paracetamol.

Is this a double standard? Or just ridiculous?

Acknowledging the existence of children trying to interact with me (I'm a guy). Example; was a cashier and this kid with some mental disorder (Downs I think) always loved to talk to me when his parents were going through cash (his dad said he always remembered me). Long story short, got hauled into the office by my boss and I was told my behavior was inappropriate. For talking to a kid. About food.

Extreme fears of stranger danger are xenophobic, and definitely a double standard.

I experienced this just a few days ago. I was at a museum and a little girl came up to me and my kid while we were playing with the instruments. I handed her one so she could join in and we're having a good time making terrible music. Her mother quickly swooped in and told her not to interact with dangerous people. I was so humiliated I left instantly with my kid. I have a kid and you think I'm dangerous?

Good managers hold themselves to a higher standard than their teams, not different standards.

How about this one:

If you're late again, I'm writing you up

Leaves 3 hours before her scheduled shift (that she gave herself) ends without warning

Demanding artists to perform for free is an egregious double standard.

People: I want more art, music, movies and other forms of entertainment.

Also people: I don't want to pay for any of it or it isn't worth my money.

The often paltry penalties for white collar crimes, if they're even prosecuted at all, represent a huge double standard, considering the damage they cause.

White collar crime sometimes affects millions of people and has a tiny prison sentence, and is way more nefarious, compared to a drug offense that typically only affects a small group of friends/family.

Acknowledging our personal inconsistencies is how we become better people.

Probably my own. That's to say noticing the hypocrisy in my beliefs and actions. If I can't call bullsh_t on myself then I don't have much of a right to call it in others. Hopefully, I'm arcing toward improvement but I have a lot of work to do.

Respect is earned, taught, and reciprocal, always.

"If you won't respect me, I won't respect you"

Which doesn't sound like a double-standard, but when you consider what context it is used in it changes. My father used to say this when I wouldn't do exactly as he commanded me to.

The issue is that there are levels of respect, while it might sound like an "if you won't treat me with a certain amount of respect, I won't show the same amount back", but it is executed as:

"If you won't respect me as an authority, I won't respect you as a basic human"

Letting them treat you with way less respect than you treated them, while still being fair in their eyes.

Men: it's okay to show emotion, including crying. Releasing emotion is healthy. Bottling it up poses real health risks.

"Men don't cry". Every single instance that says men aren't supposed to show emotions, tears, anything that could be considered a "weakness" pisses me off to no end. Bonus irritation points if that's considered a sign of homosexuality as if that's a weakness. Sadness isn't exclusively feminine.

Bottling up emotions is one of the most toxic things I've ever done, and I'm probably still doing it unconsciously due to my upbringing. I'm certain that most men are. And that's fucked.

Looking at a screen for fun is looking at a screen for fun.

Saw this one firsthand in a store once that made me laugh:

Mother: "All you do is waste your time playing video games."

Teenage kid: "You're on Facebook as much as I'm playing games."

Mother: [long pause] "That's different."

The idea that men showing compassion toward kids is somehow predatory is a big double standard.

As a teacher, there are times I would love to be able to put an arm around a student who is crying or have a student come back to my room for extra help if they are struggling, but I'm male.....so that can't happen. We are literally told by our administration never to do any of that if we are male.

Is there really a difference between watching people play sports and watching people play video games? Not really.

For me, it was a work colleague that is fanatical about football (soccer). He would watch every game of football on TV. He could not understand that his kids enjoy watching gamers play on twitch as his kids are only "watching others play" and "they should play themselves".

Gee whiz there Einstein, what are you doing????????

Failure is a part of success, and outside-the-box ideas are what drive us forward. Go for it!

Society: If someone fought all odds and tried something very different and succeeded: "what a great achiever. Totally deserved to win as he/she did something very different instead of following the way others did".

Society: If someone fought all odds and tried something very different and failed: "what a foolish idiot. Totally obvious that he'd/she'd fail as he/she did something very different instead of following the way others did".

Petty revenge to a crazy double standard? Nailed it.

In my building there is this old lady, we always said "good morning" to one another or smiled, so she obviously knew I lived there.

To enter my building you need a key. Once it was raining and windy outside, and my key was lost somewhere in my bag under a pile of books, papers and god knows what else. So I was freezing, searching frantically through my bag for the key when I see her coming out. I think great, she will let me in. She went out of the building and closed the door behind her while pushing me out so I could not come in, all the time looking at me suspiciously. "I can't let you in if you don't have the key," she said.

A couple of days later the same situation occurred, except it was me coming out and she was looking for her key. I seized the opportunity for revenge and did exactly the same thing, closing the door in front of her face and telling her I couldn't let her in without a key. She was still screaming obscenities at me while I walked away. Wtf. You reap what you sow.