Persuasive Essay On Stereotypes

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You make assumptions of people as soon as you see them. Do you ever look at someone and make assumptions right away about that person without knowing them? Stereotypes occur without you realizing it. Stereotype is “to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same” (“Stereotype”). I believe everywhere in our American society we either stereotype or witness stereotyping because it has become a natural instinct. Psychologists say we categorize -- or stereotype -- by age and race and gender, because our brains are wired to do so automatically (Stossel and Kendall para. 4).
The idea of stereotyping spread throughout America in the 20th century. At the end of the 1940s, all the trends of gender, “traditional” American families, and expectations of the ideal family characterizing the rest of the twentieth century suddenly reversed themselves (Coontz para. 1). In the 1970s, psychologists went into depth with the study and research about the way people think. In the early 1980s, there were theories about stereotypes and Americans believed there were people who were stereotypical only when it came to things such as racism …show more content…

Chisholm says how from her experiences she came to realize that she had two drawbacks: one was being black, and the other was being a female (Chisholm 262). To Chisholm, both handicaps [black and female] mean a disadvantage in a society full of prejudiced people. Chisholm’s primary focus is on female stereotypes in the workplace, however; she also states how women are always expected to be different and inferior and be “the happy homemaker and the contented darky…” (Chisholm 263). She recognizes that women in America have been brainwashed into believing their role as women is being “second-class citizens” (Chisholm

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