On gender roles and double standard.

Why is it that society gives boys all the freedom they can handle and judges girls with a completely different set of rules?

Well, the two genders played very different roles in a traditional community. It is possible that the double standard in gender emerged as a solution to a problem facing a community. What could this problem be and why was double standard a viable solution?

The Problem:
Boys being boys, girls being girls, boys and girls being together, the result under unsupervised conditions may not always be favorable to the well being of the community. As in, children being born to parents who are children themselves is not healthy.

The Solution: Double Standard
Lets take a farming community where child pregnancy is a big issue. The community, not being rich, is desperate for a solution. A town hall meeting is called to discuss the matter. After hours of discussion the community believes that they have found a viable solution: The Double Standard.

The Double Standard works in the following way. Teach the girls acceptable behavior, make them in charge of enforcing it, and establish reward and punishment mechanism to keep the girls in check. The choice of teaching the girls and not the boys is important because girls spend most of their time helping the mother in the kitchen. This provides the mother ample opportunity to teach the girls responsible behavior and how it needs to be enforced. The boys in the community usually spend time working on the farm, therefore teaching them is not really an option. When boys and girls do meet, the girls are well trained by their mothers to enforce rules society aspects them to live by. As a reward, girls doing a good job are respected, doors are held open for them, chair pulled out. They are referred to as ladies, men mind their language in their presence, and raise their hats in salutations. When a certain girl is not doing a good job, she is labeled as a slut, not respected in society, and not considered to be marriage material. Boys are exempt from this reward/punishment mechanism since they do not bare the responsibility of enforcing any social rules.

The undoing of the double standard
Girls to a certain extent still enjoy the benefits from the double standard time. For example, doors held open, chairs pulled out, men restraining from obscenities, etc. However, the reason is mostly forgotten. The double standard system is looked upon as unfair to girls and a thing of the past.