“Women Get Judged More Harshly”: MAFS’ Sara On The Disproportionate Reactions To Her Cheating Scandal

Sara Mesa is no stranger to controversy. In this season of Married At First Sight, she was at the centre of a cheating scandal after it was discovered that Sara had met up with her ex during the experiment and didn't tell Tim about it. The allegations were made even worse with the reveal that she had slept with her ex just one month before the experiment.

While Sara clarified in a previous Refinery29 Australia interview that the ex she had slept with was not the same one she had met up with (and that she had met up with her ex as well as all of his friends), in a new interview, Sara has said that the response to her scandal is far different from how other people in the experiment have been treated, especially Jack.

"I always think that women get judged more harshly than men do," Sara tells Refinery29 Australia. "I think that's just society these days."

"I think it's very obvious," she continues. "You can see on the show that everyone has an opinion about what happened between me and my ex, like going out with him. A lot of time, you don't actually see anyone speaking up about Jack, except for me, Lauren, or Timothy."

Sara explicitly calls out the reactions to Jack's behaviour — which has included his infamous "muzzle" comment, him allegedly calling other people "whales", and his polarising relationship with Tori Adams — and how people seemed to react more harshly to her behaviour than Jack's.

"The rage that people felt over what I did in comparison to what Jack did, it was pretty shocking," she says. "It's so shocking, but I feel like that is this day and age, but it was it was just interesting to see."

During the dinner party, where Sara was interrogated by the others about what was then dubbed emotional cheating, she shares that some people did stand up for her — but those moments weren't aired. "It's funny, because you don't actually see Lauren having my back at that dinner party; they completely cut it out," Sara explains. "But she had my back, like, wholeheartedly. She was the only person that had my back because she knows me, she knows my ex and she knows my ex's friends. She knows the situation."

According to Sara, Lauren had aired the exact same concerns about the group's outrage. "She was saying that exact same thing. She's like, where were you guys when all of this was happening with Jack? Where were you guys when he was throwing out all these comments? Like, where is where was this like fire, and this need to put someone down when it was happening to Jack?"

"Now all of a sudden, Sara hangs out with her ex and everyone has something to say," Sara continues. "It was pretty shit, but that is how it goes, I guess."