Do you know if that is totally true? Do you know alot of stepfathers to verify that? Im just asking...

I also feel like that is true! My SO married his exW and was a SDad to her DD. He got a lot of praise from her family and everyone about how he was such a great man for "stepping up" even though the DD had an involved father in the picture. Now, his exW has a bf who is the father of her 3rd child and he is being praised for "stepping up" as being a father figure even though her first 2 children both have involved fathers. 
 

I think life is a lot easier for SDads than it is for SMoms. The role is a lot easier. It's us women who have to overcompensate and always worry about people's feelings or stepping on toes where men just don't have it that complicated.

We always value things that are in short supply.  Lol

I only knew one person well who had a both a stepdad and a stepmom. It was a guy who hated his stepfather with a passion and felt sort of neutral about his stepmom. I know several women with stepmoms and they don't like them. Maybe a gender thing? Also BMs seem to have more sway than BDs so maybe they influence skids' perceptions. I only met one person who raved about how much he loved his stepmom, but his BM died when he was very young, so maybe lack of BM influence was the thing that allowed their relationship to grow. Kind of morbid...

To generalize, the difference in how stepmothers and stepfathers are often perceived and treated has to do with societal views about divorce. After a divorce, the mother is usually the poor, martyred, single mother who has to be both mom and dad to the children who have been traumatized by the breakup of their family. Therefore, when stepdad swoops in, he is the savior. Dad, on the other hand, is perceived as the one who abandoned his children and no longer appreciates their poor, sainted mother for all she does. Therefore, the stepmother is seen as the interloper who is tempting dad away from his children with the promise of a new exciting, child free life. These underlying assumptions carry over, even if there was nothing about the end of the marriage that resembles either of these scenarios in any way.

Another reason stepfathers are often treated better than stepmothers is that dads are less likely to act territorial and possessive of their children and therefore, less likely to put their kids in loyalty binds with a stepdad. BMs are much more likely to try to undermine a child's relationship with a stepmom.

Wednesday Martin (author of Stepmonster book) writes about why stepfathers get an easier ride than stepmothers: 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stepmonster/201106/why-its-easie...

I think it has to do with bio fathers, in general, being less jealous of the new stepfather, and stepfathers also generally doing less parenting than stepmothers. Stepfathers who come in and try to be the New Sheriff in Town often are disliked, too.

From a purely sexist stereotypical and first family centric view I think stepfathers are seen as bringing more resources into the first family while stepmothers are seen as a resource drain. this is why so many second wives are considered gold diggers no matter the circumstances. 

society as a whole doesn't ever think about the second family as a valid family unit unless they are the brady bunch. and The Brady bunch is popular because it is two parents that have majority custody it would not have been a successful show if Mrs Brady was just a stepmom and not also a BM herself. Dads that have their kids anything less than 100% are considered abandoning and selfish. BMs are always the martyrs so step dad can swoop in and save the day for her and her kids.

I can't even think of example in popular culture of a stepmom that was the hero of her own story. Stepmom's role is always a villain that is there to take away time and money from the step kids or the bio mom is dead and they can just be mom (Sarah Plain and Tall).  BM is still alive then there is no room for a stepmom.

Along with all the factors already mentioned, most societies still consider a woman without a husband as unsupported and unfulfilled, and a man without a wife as free from responsibility (perhaps too free, but that's another topic).

So Mom needs a new husband, but a new wife for Dad would just be a drag on him.

Generally speaking, men have fewer expectations thrust upon them as parents. Men are expected to be hands-off as parents, so when a random dude suddenly starts acting "fatherly" (read: nice to other kids), he is seen as going "above and beyond" because it's what he would do for his own kids.

Women, however, are expected to act motherly to any kid, their own or someone elses. Not nice. Not caring. Motherly. That's a lot of responsibility, and because it's expected of ALL women, they don't get any praise when they do it. But, they'll certainly get chastised if they don't do it right because they should have had enough practice or it should come naturally or whatever​​​​​.

Then add in all the social stereotypes around how single moms are created because Dad slept with his secretary and left Mom for her (unless you're a BIPOC, then you're a single mom because you slept with too many men and they're all deadbeats). Men are ALWAYS the bad guys when a woman is a "single mom". Couldn't possibly be that she was a shrewd harpy. Couldn't possibly be that she left her husband and cheated on him. Nope, it's ALL the dad's fault.

So, if men leave women with their kids to be single moms, then any man who steps in as a "father-figure" is a savior. But, since all women who marry divorced men were mistresses, the new wife is inherently "evil". 

All of this gets supported by popular media, society, social contracts, family court, uneducated therapists, etc. It's a very one-dimensional look at relationships that leads to women being villainized and men being praised for doing the same thing. 

Now, specifically-speaking, it's hard to know if your SKs appreciate their SF more than they do you. If they spend more time with him, then they likely have a closer relationship with him. That doesn't necessarily mean he is more appreciated because he is the SF. It just means that they have a closer relationship due to proximity, or that the kids have had to figure out how to live with him more than they've had to with you.

My suggestion: don't focus on how they interact with him. You don't know and can't control that dynamic. How BM approaches step families may be very different than how your DH does. Your SKs' relationships with their dad likely also impacts the relationship with you, and the same goes for BM and her FH. You'll go bonkers trying to figure all this out, likely at the cost of hurting your relationships with your DH and the SKs.

Focus on what you can control and ignore the rest. 

I've observed this over and over in my own situation. My SDs SF has been around for about half the time that I have and while he isn't unkind to them, he pretty much ignores them altogether - they have told us this repeatedly. The only real contribution he's made to their lives directly is improving BM's standard of living because he has a real job and is financially responsible. Meanwhile I've spent the last 12 years of their lives being kind, generous, and nurturing and have always spent lots of quality time with them. But he gets all the sappy social media shout outs while I get blamed for every single thing that has gone wrong in their lives

In general I think this hinges on the BM's attitude towards the SM, really. If BM is insecure and hateful, eventually the kids are going to adopt that same attitude. It seems to me that moms can influence their children's emotions more readily than dads can, particularly if the kids spend more time with the mom.