A double standard happens when two people do essentially the same thing and are judged differently because of who they are. A man who takes charge is a leader, while a woman doing the same is "bossy". A father at the park gets praise, while a mother gets questions. Once you notice the pattern, it appears everywhere, from offices and beaches to comic conventions.
The 21 comics and cartoons below make those contrasts visible. They come from very different artists: a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, a classic newspaper strip, Archie Comics, the science webcomic xkcd and many independent illustrators who posted their work on Tumblr and Instagram. Most of the examples are about gender, but several show that men are boxed in too. Under each one we explain who made it and what point it makes, so you can decide for yourself how fair each comparison is.
What counts as a double standard?
Treating two situations differently is not automatically unfair. It becomes a double standard when there is no relevant difference between them: the same behaviour, the same context, a different verdict. That is why double standards are usually linked to bias and hypocrisy, and why judges, referees and employers are expected to apply the same rules to everyone.
Research has measured some of these patterns. A study of how investment professionals rate one another, by Tristan Botelho and Mabel Abraham, found that average men were given the benefit of the doubt more often than equally average women, and many orchestras began holding auditions behind a screen to keep the player's gender out of the decision. Findings are not always one-sided, though. Some recent studies on sexual behaviour found a weaker double standard than expected, which is a good reason to treat each cartoon below as a pointed argument, not a final word.
At work, at school and in fan culture
Many of the sharpest comics deal with competence and belonging: who gets called a leader, who gets blamed as a group, and who has to prove they are a "real" fan.
Archie Comics
A vintage Archie Comics page titled "The Double Standard" lays out three pairs: a boy who attracts girls is "popular" while a girl is a "flirt", a boy who takes charge shows "leadership ability" while a girl is "bossy", and boys "shoot the breeze" while girls "gossip". Betty and Veronica, the series' long-running leads, act out the female side. It is a reminder that this conversation is decades old, and that it once appeared in mainstream comics for teenagers.
Sunny Street by Max Garcia
Max Garcia's Sunny Street strip, dated 2013, shows the same line, "Lookin' good, Susan", delivered by two different men. From a handsome colleague it is sweet; from a less attractive one it is a call to Human Resources. The joke is that the rule seems to move with the man's looks. In real workplaces the question is whether a remark is welcome and appropriate to the relationship, which is why comments about work are always safer than comments about appearance.
Sarah Cooper, The Cooper Review
Sarah Cooper, a former Google designer who left the company in 2014 to write comedy, made this panel for her satirical series "9 Non-threatening Leadership Strategies for Women". When a woman disagrees, she is ignored; add a drawn-on moustache and the man says "Oh ok". The series grew into her 2018 book How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings. Years later, in 2020, Cooper became famous for her lip-sync videos of Donald Trump.
xkcd by Randall Munroe
Randall Munroe's xkcd strip "How It Works" shows two people making the same maths error at a blackboard. When a man makes it, the verdict is "you suck at math"; when a woman makes it, it becomes "girls suck at math". The point is that one person's mistake gets treated as evidence about an entire group. The hidden alt text adds a maths joke of its own: "It's pi plus C, of course."
Robot Hugs
The webcomic Robot Hugs pairs identical feelings with the different words used to describe them. A man is "angry" while a woman is "crazy", he is "assertive" while she is called a far ruder word, he is "straightforward" and she is "abrasive". Language shapes how behaviour is judged, often before anyone has looked at what was actually said or done.
Shortpacked! by David Willis
David Willis's Shortpacked!, a webcomic set in a toy store that ran from 2005 to 2015, takes on fan outrage. A customer fumes that a fan poll produced a female Transformer, insisting the robots are genderless. His colleague asks how people would react if a male one had won, and he simply cannot see the point. "Male is also a gender," she says.
radrangy
Radrangy's strip applies the "fake geek girl" quiz to a man: a woman in a Batman T-shirt is grilled to prove she reads the comics, so the artist imagines a man in Chuck Taylor shoes being grilled about basketball. The shoes are named after Chuck Taylor, a basketball player and salesman, which is the joke's punchline. Most fans who wear a logo simply like it.
AlexandraDal
At a convention, a man in a revealing costume complains that it should be illegal to cosplay "outside your body type", standing beside other men who do the same, while the women he is judging are dressed as characters such as Lara Croft. The single word "FAIL" says it all. Cosplay is meant to be fun, and fans of every shape take part.
Bodies, clothing and appearance
The largest group of comics is about bodies: what may be shown, what counts as attractive, and who is allowed to look relaxed.
David Horsey
Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist David Horsey drew this for the Los Angeles Times, where he worked from 2011 to 2018. A security guard tells a mother that she cannot breastfeed in a shopping mall, while the shop behind them displays a giant lingerie advert. The cartoon asks why one use of breasts is treated as obscene and the other as marketing. Many places now protect the right to breastfeed in public by law.
Scott Metzger
Scott Metzger's beach cartoon shows a shirtless man scolding his wife for going topless, even though, in the drawing, their chests look almost the same. The cartoon exaggerates to make a point that campaigns such as "Free the Nipple" raised in the 2010s. Laws on topless bathing still differ widely between countries and even between beaches.
Anna-Maria Jung for Dorkly
In this Dorkly comic by Anna-Maria Jung, a warrior woman complains that her bikini-style armour has left her full of arrows, while men get full plate. When the man agrees to swap, he discovers how light and cool it is. "Chainmail bikini" armour is a long-running fantasy trope, mocked by gamers and illustrators for decades.
beiibis
In this beiibis comic, two women say exactly the same thing: "I love food!" The slim one is told she is cool and should keep it up; the larger one is told she is disgusting and should consider a healthier diet. The comic shows how the same words are judged by the body of the person who says them.
Kate Leth (Kate or Die)
Canadian comics writer Kate Leth, whose webcomic was called Kate or Die, drew this in 2012. On Monday a man tells a woman she does not need all that makeup; on Tuesday, when she arrives without it, he asks if she is sick because she looks tired. Leth later wrote comics for Marvel and BOOM! Studios.
For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston
Lynn Johnston's For Better or For Worse, which ran from 1979 to 2008, often joked about married life. Here Elly's husband John says she is getting a little rotund, and when she points at his own belly he insists that on men a little extra weight looks fine. Elly's last line about "love handles" lands the point.
kendrawcandraw
Kendrawcandraw's "Why. Summer Edition" asks why a man can go shirtless in the heat and a woman cannot, and why a man's armpit hair earns a high five while a woman's earns disgust. Body hair norms have changed many times through history, and they are still mainly a matter of habit and fashion.
How Baby comic
How Baby comic #39, "Dad Bod", shows women on a beach admiring a soft-bellied father, then sneering at a mother with the same body as she plays with her child. The term "dad bod" became a buzzword around 2015, mostly used affectionately; no friendly equivalent took hold for mothers whose bodies have carried children.
Sex, parenting and the choices people make
Some double standards follow people into their private lives, from relationships to raising children.
beiibis
This beiibis comic sets two women side by side across three scenarios. Whatever each of them does, whether dressing plainly or glamorously, liking geek culture or staying home with children, someone has an insult ready. The comic argues that the problem is not any single choice but that every choice is judged.
Chaunie Brusie for Babble
Written by Chaunie Brusie for the parenting site Babble, this chart compares dads and moms at the grocery store, the doctor's office, the park and the hairdresser. Dad is praised for doing ordinary parenting; mom is questioned or criticised for the same things. The joke rests on a low bar for fathers, which many involved dads find insulting as well.
Ryan Imm
Ryan Imm's three wordless panels show a couple in bed, then the woman judged by a crowd and the man congratulated by his friends. It is the classic sexual double standard: the same act brings the man praise and the woman shame. Recent research suggests this standard is weaker than it used to be, but it has not disappeared.
deadeyedplasticdesktoy
Two portraits of the same woman are surrounded by speech bubbles. While pregnant, she hears that motherhood is a blessing and her duty; once she is a single mother, she hears that she is a drain on the system. The comic criticises how quickly public sympathy can change after birth.
Men are judged by narrow rules too
Rigid gender expectations do not only affect women. Several artists in this collection point out that men face their own set of rules about emotion, experience and appearance.
Rasenth
Rasenth's sketches list three male stereotypes: that showing weakness is "girly", that a male virgin is sad, and that a man with a negative body image is "unmanly". The drawing is a reminder that rigid expectations also hurt men, particularly when they make it harder to ask for help.
How to notice a double standard in everyday life
A simple test helps: swap the people. If a remark about a woman's outfit would sound strange about a man's, or praise for a father would sound odd for a mother, the judgment may be about the person rather than the action. The same test works for age, background, body size and many other traits.
None of this means every difference in treatment is unfair. But asking "would I react the same way if someone else did this?" is one of the easiest ways to become a fairer colleague, parent and friend. And if one of these comics struck a chord, look up the artist and follow their work directly.
Sources: Wikipedia: Double standard; xkcd 385: How It Works (Randall Munroe); Wikipedia: David Horsey; Wikipedia: Sarah Cooper; Wikipedia: Kate Leth; Wikipedia: For Better or For Worse; Wikipedia: Shortpacked!.
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