Fighting Stereotypes

1072 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Concepts of stereotypes

A stereotype is defined as a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. There are multitudes of stereotypes in our society today ranging from the physical attributes of a person or groups of people to the behaviors of a person or groups of people. According to An Introduction to Logic, “Often the fallacy of hasty generalization can lead to damaging stereotypes made on the basis of just a few examples. Stereotypes about women, religious groups, minorities, ethnic groups, and so forth are often based on this type of reasoning” (Mosser, Ch. 4, pg. 13). Insufficient evidence is often the cause of inaccurate stereotypes and can be detrimental for everyone involved. Throughout my life, I have been placed into three stereotyped categories for example: being a redhead and hot-tempered, being a Christian that hates gays and finally, being married to a black man and will inevitably end up divorced because of the differences within the black and white cultures, these are fallacies that do not have any validity.

The first stereotype, a hot-tempered redhead, has been following me my entire life. As a child, I heard most people refer to redheads as the hot-tempered or fiery tempered person. Being short tempered and having a short fuse has been a stereotype for redheads for a long time. Many people behave differently when dealing with a redhead because of the fear of how the redhead will react. A typical argument can look like this:

P: All redheads are hot-tempered.

P: Debbie has red hair.

C: Debbie is hot-tempered.

Looking back on this stereotype makes me laugh now because I was always a very shy and introverted as a child. I am still pretty even keeled and have a great deal o...

... middle of paper ...

...going through struggles in life is from Martin Luther King Jr., “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Traveling through these life’s trials has been one of the true challenges in my life to show that the typical stereotypes are just that; a stereotype.

Works Cited

Intelecom. (n.d.). How pre-existing beliefs distort logical reasoning [Video]. Retrieved

from http://www.intelecomonline.net

Kemick, A. (2010, April 12). Stereotyping has lasting negative impact: Prejudice has

lingering effects, study shows. U.S. News. Retrieved from

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/08/12/stereotyping-has-lasting-negative-impact

Mosser, K. (2011). An introduction to logic. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

(https://content.ashford.edu)

Show More
Related

  • The Dangers Of Stereotypes In Spare Parts By Joshua Ravis

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    What Is a Stereotype? The definition of a stereotype is any commonly known public belief about a certain social group or a type of individual. Stereotypes are often created about people of specific cultures or races. Stereotyping is a big problem, and everyone can be affected by it. There are many ways to stereotype a person such as, all white Americans are obese, lazy, and dumb, men who spend too much time on the computer or read are geeks, that all Mexicans are lazy and came into America illegally, all Arabs and Muslims are terrorists, or that all Americans are generally considered to be friendly, generous, and tolerant. All of these examples of stereotyping are found in the novel, Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream by Joshua Davis, published on December 2, 2014. This is a nonfiction/documentary book that follows the true story of how four undocumented teens from Mexico, leaving in Arizona, are joined by two teachers who were able to beat some of the best engineering schools

    Read More

  • Stereotyping And Discrimination In Boyz N The Hood, Furious Styles

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    A stereotype is an exaggerated generalization used to describe a group of people. Discrimination is the unequal treatment of different categories of people. An example of a stereotype would be the generalization that a majority of African American youth are gangbangers or criminals. An example of discrimination would be the mocking of an Asian student’s accent each time they spoke in class. Stereotyping and discrimination still take place today whether in minority communities or in the communities of those who hold the majority, though these incidents are not as prevalent in non minority

    Read More

  • What Role Does Facework Play In Intercultural Communication Essay

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stereotypes are formed when a person sees a certain race, religious group or ethnic group behaving a certain way enough that they form an impression of that group as being that certain way. And it is considered a stereotype because they apply their impression to the group as a whole

    Read More

  • Stereotypes

    481 Words  | 1 Pages

    Stereotyping redheads or Scottish people usually does little harm. It typically leads to friendly kidding and good-natured jokes. Simple-minded stereotyping can be dangerous. The danger lies in exaggeration of differences in color, nationality, religion and language. We exaggerate the differences, ignoring what we share as human beings and become prejudiced. Prejudice is nourished by fear as it grows out of exaggeration. It is a profoundly negative emotion bearing the fruit of hatred.

    Read More

  • Essay On Mexican Stereotypes

    427 Words  | 1 Pages

    Chinese people eat cats or dogs. Blue is a color for boys. Women are bad drivers. Those are the most common phrases I've heard about stereotyping. However, stereotypes are assumptions that are assigned to groups of people because of their religion, nationality, gender, race, clothing, among others. In our daily life, there are negative and positive stereotypes, and it is possible that we all use stereotypes, all the time, without knowing it. Also, in my life I experienced this issue because of my ethnicity and my gender.

    Read More

  • Hawaiian Stereotypes

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Dictionary.com a stereotype is something conforming to a fixed or general pattern, especially an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group (dictionary.com).

    Read More

  • White Girl Stereotypes

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stereotypes are relatively fixed, overgeneralized attitudes and behaviors that are considered normal and appropriate for a person in a culture based on race, gender, and religion.They are assumptions that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image about what people in

    Read More

  • Music-genre Stereotypes

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    To conclude, stereotyping is to generalizing common qualities, characters and etc. for a group. The favors of individuals diverse because of their culture, religion beliefs, education and experiences, so the stereotype is a good tool for expressing themselves and defining identities. Even though the stereotypes may lead others to get a valid knowledge of you, it will make things worse if you do not want others know about you, or you will be cheated if others feign another stereotype. The stereotypes may be harmful when abused.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In Native Son

    864 Words  | 2 Pages

    A stereotype is an unfair idea or belief that all people with a particular characteristic are the same. The judgement people make about others is based on their own direct interactions, but is mainly relied on the media. The media decides what is to be shown and what is to be hidden, demonstrating bias and promoting negative stereotypes towards people. Many times the media has gotten away with promoting negative stereotypes and bias, through race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, and gender. There are many articles that discuss the issue of the media stereotyping people within a group, in which they do not belong in, because of their race.

    Read More

  • Stereotyping of Car Club Members

    1806 Words  | 4 Pages

    Everyone has heard the saying don’t judge a book by a cover. Sadly every minute of the day someone gets judged because of assumptions that are not correct. These assumptions overtime eventually lead to stereotypes. A stereotype is an image or idea of a particular type of person. Stereotyping a person is seen in many differents aspects such as race, groups, beliefs, appearance, etc. An individual may ask why people are stereotyped or stereotype. In reality stereotyping helps people categorize the different type of people. It narrows down the options of who one might want to associate with. Stereotyping can have its negatives, it makes people ignore how others really are. It may lead to a person not wanting to hang out with another person because of the stereotype that persons group has. Everyday the general public use cars for the means of transportation. But what about when people use their car for more than transportation, car enthusiasts often modify their cars to their likings. Enthusiasts often join car clubs to share their common interests with other car enthusiasts. Often the people in car clubs have a stereotype of being juvenile, racing a lot, low-life bums, and ghetto when actually most do not have those characteristics.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In the Media

    483 Words  | 1 Pages

    Stereotypes play an important role in today's society and particularly in Propaganda. According to the Webster's Dictionary stereotyping is defined as a fixed conventional notion or conception of an individual or group of people, heldby a number of people. Stereotypes can be basic or complex generalizations which people apply to individuals or groups based on their appearance, behaviour and beliefs. Stereotypes are found everywhere. Though our world seems to be improving in many ways it seems almost impossible to liberate it from stereotypes.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes and The Merchant of Venice

    1627 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stereotypes are a fixed image of all members of a culture, group, or race, usually based on limited and inaccurate information resulting from the minimal contact with these stereotyped groups. Stereotypes have many forms: people are stereotyped according to their religion, race, ethnicity, age, gender, color, or national origins. This kind of intolerance is focused on the easily observable characteristics of groups of people. In general, stereotypes reduce individuals to a rigid and inflexible image that doesn't account for the multi-dimensional nature of human beings. One example of stereotypes is the categorization of the Jews in the Elizabethan era.

    Read More

  • Dichotomy The Devil Essay

    1626 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stereotypes are assumptions that are made about an entire group of people based on observations of a few; they act as scapegoats for prejudice behaviour and ideologies.

    Read More

  • Stereotyping, Through the Eyes of Teenage Girls

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    A ‘stereotype’ by definition is a generalized image of a person or group, which does not acknowledge individual differences and which is often prejudicial to that person or group. People in general develop stereotypes when they can’t or are hesitant to get all of the information they need to make fair judgments about a person, or a group of people. When this type of situation happens, as it most often does, the person judging misses the ‘whole picture.’ Stereotypes in many cases allow us to ‘fill in the blanks’ and come to our own conclusions. Our society is the main culprit of the creation of stereotypes, but these stereotypes often lead to unfair discrimination and persecution when the stereotype is unfavorable. Stereotyping often results from, and leads to, prejudice and bigotry. (3)

    Read More

  • Argument Essay: Stereotypes, And Stereotypes?

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stereotype is a wide topic that covers many aspects in the society. Stereotypes are harmful because it makes an impulsive judgment based on immediately observable characteristics such as race, gender, and religion. Stereotype can be defined as a common belief towards a certain group of people or an individual. There are many types of stereotype and the major ones are race, gender, religion, income and age and disability. There is negative and positive stereotype but many people ignore the negative side of it and they divert their attention on positive stereotype, this i causes many problems because many people suffer because of negative stereotype. Stereotype

    Read More

More about Fighting Stereotypes

Open Document