The Double Standard We Have Made Our Own

Failure does not wear the same face for everyone. It never has. It is a currency that is accepted differently depending on who holds it. For some, failure is a necessary inconvenience, a lesson wrapped in opportunity, an expected pitstop on the road to eventual success. For others, failure is a complete stop, a verdict delivered swiftly and without mercy. A confirmation of every unspoken doubt that existed before they even had a chance to begin.

We are raised on a diet of empty ideals: told that effort matters, that success is a product of hard work, and that failure is a temporary setback. But beneath these comforting platitudes lies the unspoken reality: some people are expected to succeed, and others must justify their presence every day. Some are given the space to stumble, to learn, to grow. Others must arrive flawless, as though perfection is their only right to exist in the room.

Sociologists call this cultural capital: the invisible currency that dictates whose mistakes are overlooked and whose are weaponised. It is not just about competence; it is about familiarity, about who belongs and who does not. It is about who is assumed to be capable before they even prove themselves and who is assumed to be inadequate, no matter how much they achieve.

We see this in every facet of life, in leadership, in institutions, and in society at large. The same misstep that earns one person a second chance becomes the reason another is deemed "not quite ready." One is mentored; the other is managed out. One is given space to develop; the other is quietly discarded. The difference? One was always expected to thrive. The other was an anomaly that must work twice as hard to prove that they deserve to stay.

And what is even more insidious? We have absorbed this reality so deeply that we now enforce it on ourselves.

We, who have toiled to climb the corporate ladder, who have clawed our way into spaces that were never designed for us, have learnt to be twice as good for half the reward. And somewhere along the way, we became complicit. We also scrutinise each other more harshly. We, too, are quicker to doubt the brilliance of those like us while excusing the mediocrity of those who have always been allowed to lead.

This is not just injustice. This is psychological conditioning.

And the cost of this conditioning is high.

The burden is not just about proving oneself: it is about constantly validating the presence of others who share your experience. In the process, we sometimes become gatekeepers of our own exclusion, setting impossible standards for those like us while accepting that others can be ordinary and still belong. We uphold endurance as the price of entry, never questioning why some are granted space to exist without carrying the weight of representation.

If the psychology of exclusion has taught us anything, it is that systems do not sustain themselves by force alone; they persist because they are internalised, repeated, and normalised by those who suffer under them.

The rules of who gets to fail, who gets to belong, and who must always over-perform are not just dictated from afar; they are upheld by cultural conditioning that trains leaders to police themselves and others. Unlearning this is not just about demanding fairness; it is about actively reassessing the psychological structures that shape our perceptions of success and belonging. It requires recognising that worth should not be contingent on perfection, that failure is not a privilege but a universal human experience, and that survival should not be mistaken for success.

More than anything, it requires rewriting the narrative: one that does not ask the marginalised to be exceptional in order to be accepted, but instead demands that mediocrity no longer be a birthright of the privileged.