Experiencing Minority Status: Rima and Nitya's Story

Connecting back to the idea of Rima and Nitya being considered a minority, each of them have experienced being considered a minority at some point in their life. A minority is defined as “a group in society distinguished from, and less dominant than, the larger and more numerous majority” according to the dictionary and a minority group is defined by Martin M. Merger (Race & Ethnic Relations, Martin N. Marger, 1991) states that “being apart of a group that, on the basis of their physical and or cultural traits.” Growing up in Pakistan, Rima was not a minority and was inevitably a part of the dominant group in Pakistan due to her heritage and ethnicity. Living in London now, Rima is not treated or considered to be a part of the dominant race

and has faced issues of discrimination in connection in being apart of a minority group. Nitya also shares the same views as Rima in the fact that she doesn’t feel any particular discrimination against her ethnicity, but feels being a female faces more discrimination in her life personally. This issue matters because women in today’s world still feel as though race and ethnicity is not an issue, but gender still is and the role of women in the world is still negative. Even though Rima has a high power and leadership role in her job, a strong education and brilliant mind, gender is still a main issue. This further concludes the issue of being apart of a minority group because even

According to Martin N. Marger (Race & Ethnic Relations, Martin N. Marger, 1991) discrimination, stereotypes and prejudice can all be closely defined in a similar way. Discrimination in Race and Ethnic Relations is defined as “negative actions against a group, aimed at denying its members equal access to societal rewards” and prejudice is defined as “a generalized belief usually inflexible or unfavorable, applied to members of a particular group.” Both of these terms relate to aspects of a particular group and stereotypes is more individual and is mainly a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Conducting the interview it was discovered that both females both had very different definitions of discrimination and being stereotyped by strangers and peers. Rima stated that she had never faced discrimination and further explained that “indirectly and so subtly that I could never pin it down or prove it. In some cases I would not even call it discrimination. I think people who are the same naturally gravitate to one another and if you are not one of the group then you are on the outside. Thankfully I have never had to encounter in-your-face Race