Double Standards for Women and Men: A Case Study

I know this older man in his 60’s.  He is a black guy with an Italian last name.  It’s “Stephany”.   I know what you’re thinking. “Stephany” is an Italian last name?  No, it’s really Stefancic but those guys writing in the big book on Ellis Isle weren’t too picky on spelling.  Hence, the newcomer and all his descendents will forever have a last name that is an American girl’s first name.  So what’s that got to do with why we ridicule women for sleeping around but not men?  You know all that double standard mumbo jumbo.  Well, here’s the thing, the dudes not Italian.  And neither was his fucking Daddy. 

The dude’s daddy is really an Afro Brazilian who’s last name is Quajo (something like that) but since mummy was shacked up with an Italian dude when she turned up preggers with my 60 year old acquaintance she gave him the Italian dudes last name on the birth certificate.  I guess she did that to avoid the famous Italian temper which later came to bear on her throat by way of a knife.  I’m sure it was over some hoe shit, but I digress. 

She survived the attack only to link with a black dude named Joyner.  So my acquaintance who was a toddler at the time ended up going by the name of Joyner until he switched schools as a teen and the birth certificate came into play and he found out his last name was Stephany.  Then it started to sink in.  The reason Joyner was going upside his head so bad was because he wasn’t Joyner’s child.  Christ.

So he ran away to live with his mom’s sister.  That’s when his mom’s sister was like yo, I hate to break this shit to you but you are not a Stefancic, a Stephany, or a Joyner but you are a cot damned Quajo.

WTF?!?!  Yeah, Quajo.  An afro brazilian auto mechanic who his mom bedded, but who auntie happened to have known very well, though by this time she had lost track of him.  No googles or facebook then.  Only word on the street that so and so was of ill repute and the damning that went along with such a reputation.

It’s easy to say why don’t we ridicule the men for sleeping around?  Lmao.  You mean ridicule the auto-mechanic who if he knew of his child at all it was only because of some rumor from auntie.  Or ridicule the Italian dude who prob had good intentions until he caught whiff of the rumor, probably, and shanked her.  What’s poor Stephany supposed to do? Scream into the wind?  Howl at the moon?

Mom’s is right there to ridicule.  Everyone in the community who knows this dude and his story also knows mom dukes.  She is an easy target.  She is the ONLY target. This is why women catch flack and men get off relatively easy.

Hoe shit has led to a 60 year old man roaming the earth with no heritage.  The paternal hoe shit disappeared into the ether.  For all we know he is someone’s proud grandpop.  Maternal hoe shit is sitting right there with 60 year old Stephany, who, despite the disclosures of his aunt, is pretty unsure of his real last name.  That shit is forever man.  It doesn’t get fixed.  No one wants to see a poor guy linked to two complete strangers, one by way of last name and the other by way of blood.  So for a long time society had to police itself by shaming that sort of behavior because the men were nowhere to be shamed.  That’s not a double standard.  That is being practical.

If as a society we want to rally against it and hone in on women who behave in a ho-ish manner, more power to us.  We can tell our male children respect women and yaddi yaddi ya, and for the most part we do, but we can only aim our venom at the transgressors.  The face of these transgressions, like it or not, belongs to women as they are apart of our community and families.  The men?  Not so much.  A rolling stone collects no moss.