People are social beings. The whole life we are surrounded by other people. That is why when someone does something, she/he is always waiting for the support or critique from others. This is how we create some limits. We often hear about the generalizations and really believe that they are not true but still cannot resist categorizing people and things. We like to sort all information and ideas that we have into the groups. As Courtney (2009) maintain, “How we think affects what we do.” Eventually, human life is solely determined by some of these ruinous stereotypes that we have strongly maintained. That is why stereotypes appear.
According to Nittle, “Stereotypes are qualities assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality and sexual orientation, to name a few” (Nittle, 2011). We can find stereotypes almost everywhere. They exist in every society. We can say that they are unwritten laws that we are always trying to follow. However even from the definition we can see that this is just an attitude towards some occurrence that is based on the social conditions and the preceding experience.
But how do they come to our life? Usually they are based on past events. You have bad experience with a person or any other thing and for all your life you will believe that these types of people or things are not reliable and it will be difficult to convince you in the opposite. The process of forming the stereotypes is rather long as well as the process of its destruction. And the most interesting thing is that both procedures depend on people and time.
Another source of stereotypes is considered to be media. All the information about the world, politics and nations we receive through the media. Very often people make up some funny thing just to draw out attention and make their show interesting. But we are used to believe to everything that is said on TV. This is our main source of information. These false facts are often taken as truth. The media also through TV’s, adverts, and movies may promote stereotyping by showing undignified images and stereotypes on certain groups. Conforming behaviors promotes stereotyping by offering support to perpetrators through social support. This is also seen through pressures to be conventional to the opinions of leaders, families, associates, and friends. Stereotyping also increases when there is competition for economic benefits, especially where groups are competing for a common economic benefit (Aronson et al, 2010).
I think that gender stereotypes are the most common in modern society. Of course they depend on the traditional social roles but there are still some general stereotypes that are true everywhere. For me, the most widespread stereotype is about women. From ancient times are used to the fact that wives should stay at home and take care about husband and children. Previously woman was not supposed to work. Only man could be a breadwinner in the family. From the childhood we start teaching our daughters how to be a stereotypical lady. She should wear nice dresses, high heels, serve food and take of babies. However the world has changed. Today women have become rather successful at work. More and more we can see businesswomen. Rarely can we find those who prefer staying at home rather than going at work. Sometimes it even happens that men take care about children while wives are raising money. So today this stereotype is not so popular in modern society. However some people still believe in it.
Stereotypes are closely connected with discrimination. When people have some prejudices about others they can discriminate them in different spheres. In the situation with gender stereotypes this problem can be clearly seen. Some employers still believe that men are better workers than women. The reason for it is that women can take days off or go home earlier when their kids are ill. Others just think that men are cleverer than women. My personal opinion is that this is unacceptable. Women have the same rights to get well-paid jobs as men.
Other group of stereotypes that is rather popular is about nationalities. When we hear that a person is a foreigner we start imagining his country and think about his merits in general. For example, when we talk about Englishman we think about their specific humor. Italians are considered to be rather noisy and lazy. Frenchmen are romantics. But I don`t think that it is true in all cases. I think that everything depends on the personality. We cannot judge all people by one person. Among Englishmen we can definitely find someone with a good sense of humor.
And the last but never least is about women driving cars. Some people believe that women are not good drivers. But it also depends on the person. Some are attentive and drive careful but even a man can be not so good in this sphere.
A lot of stereotypes have explanations and we do realize that this is nonsense. But deep in heart we still believe in these ideas. I think that everyone should try to fight for the equal attitude towards ourselves.
Courtney, J. (2009). Real Men Do Housework: Ethos and Masculinity in Contemporary
Domestic Advice. Rhetoric Review, 28 (1): 66-81.
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. (2010). Social psychology. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Nittle N. (2011). What is stereotype? Retrieved from: http://racerelations.about.com/od/understandingrac1/a/WhatIsaStereotype.htm
