History is full of infidelity, full of stories of unfaithful men and women who are branded as cursed when they become “the official ones” after “breaking into” a marriage or a relationship. There are many examples of this history such as Camilla and now King Charles III, Clara Chia and Gerard Pique, and many (many) more.
The thing is that almost always the backlash is directed at women but not so much with men, and this has a macho background. Social networks continue to cancel the woman who gets into a relationship, and the unfaithful man is ignored or not so much hatred.
In fact, there is a study conducted by Gleeden (web specialized precisely in female audiences) in Europe in 2019 in which 77% of respondents revealed that female infidelity is socially worse seen than male infidelity. And, most surprisingly, this perception is shared in many cases by women themselves. In this survey, it can be seen that, at the European level, four out of ten respondents admit that they find it more serious for a woman to have unfaithful relationships than for a man to do so.
The same study reveals that there are situations in which female infidelity is seen as worse, for example, 70% see it as more serious than male infidelity when the couple is expecting a baby, 63% when the couple seems happy, 61% in cases where the partner has already been unfaithful, and half of those consulted when the other partner has put on a lot of weight or does not even want to have sex.
But Why Does the Judging Finger Always Points at the Woman?
Infidelity is “a universal taboo, and yet it is universally practiced,” says psychotherapist Esther Perel in her book The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. The expert, considered a current reference in modern love affairs, assures that around infidelity there is a “cloud of guilt and secrecy” that socially is particularly focused on women, both when they cheat and when they are cheated on.
The issue here is that experts say that legends, tales, stories, and movies about love and romance are mainly directed to a female audience; then, when any woman breaks those schemes in which the female society has grown up, she is usually the most attacked for questioning everything that culture has offered them. A woman who breaks a marriage or is unfaithful is more judged because there are very few stories that affirm that this is normal in the gender. In contrast, an unfaithful man is more normalized because we grew up knowing that it is normal for his gender.
And if you forgive an infidelity, you are also judged. But here the criticism goes not only to the woman who formed the triangle, it also goes to the one who dares to forgive the betrayer. The girlfriend or wife who cheats and the lover who “breaks up” with a family suffer the moral punishment of society. The misfortune is that now, after the normalization of divorce, also the one who forgives the unfaithful husband is judged.
“We operate under this paradigm where monogamy equals love and care, and non-monogamy means that the person doesn’t care about you,” explains Alicia Walker, author of the book The Secret Life of the Cheating Wife: Power, Pragmatism, and Pleasure, released in November.
Because of this stigma, “many people keep their partner’s infidelity a secret to avoid being judged for deciding to stay with him, and this can lead to isolation.
Story written in Spanish by Daniela Bosch in Cultura Colectiva
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