When a male teacher has sex with a female student, it causes outrage, but it rarely makes the news outside the local police report. The guy goes on the sex-offender registry, maybe to prison, but it’s just too common to be news. When a female teacher seduces a male student, though, our prurient interest knows no bounds. I’m not making a value judgment there, just taking note.
It seems we might also have a gender-dependent double standard when it comes to politicians and marital infidelity. When a male politician is accused of cheating, it typically draws call for his removal from office. That hasn’t been the case for Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, who last week held a news conference to admit to an affair with her chief of security. The calls for her resignation have been relatively muted and center on whether she misspent public funds on trips she took with him.
Barry deserves some credit for tackling the issue head-on, something a lot of men in the same situation don’t do, and I suppose it helps that she’s a liberal in Nashville, which is more liberal than the rest of Tennessee. But I’m not sure that but explains the more forgiving attitude. That’s not to say everyone has reacted that way — many people who talk to the media say no double standard should apply — but they seem to be in the minority in Tennessee. Consider this story about the metro council proposal to investigate the affair — no grandstanding, no outrage, just a measured call for an investigation so long as it doesn’t interfere with other investigations. Again, not passing judgment, just passing along an observation.