“Oh My God! Look at that girl being loud, I bet she’s latina!” Stereotypes, stereotypes, stereotypes… We’ve all been there at least once in our life.
In social psychology, stereotypes are defined as general beliefs about a certain group or a class of people. Even though some stereotypes might sound funny, they usually are a racist way to describe a group of people or a way for categorizing people. This leads to worldwide problems such as discrimination.
Around the world, there are countless stereotypes about different ethnicities, different genders, you name it. I am sure you’ve already been judged or even judged someone based on a stereotype, discriminated against because of it. Did you not get the job you want because you belong to a specific ethnic group or from a specific gender? Were you treated differently in a restaurant, shop, in public because of a physical trait or your accent? I can go on and on. Just take a second and think about it.
“Sit straight, you’re a woman,” “you don’t know how to cook? How do you expect to keep a man?” Does that bring back memories, Ladies? Or to all my Asian friends, have you ever been criticized for not being good at maths because the world says “Asians are good at maths.” Or my Arab natives, we’ve all heard ridiculous terrorist jokes or even worse been looked at with a dirty look for having arabic physical traits.
That’s the sad truth. We’ve seen it on TV, we’ve seen it in real life, we’ve experienced it. It’s all over the world, all around us. Stereotypes are here, they are a huge influence on what we get or what we have and especially how we get treated in certain situations.
Your turn:
- Did you ever experience a situation where you were judged/judged someone because of a popular stereotype?
- Can you think of stereotypes you heard over and over again about a specific ethnic group or gender?
Yes, I’ve been judged for wearing hijab. At the airport in Cyprus, coming back from a school trip, I was inspected all over. The security put her hand in my pants, even. They even checked my shoes, as if I’d put a bomb there. But, guess what, they let our hijabi chaperone off the hook because she had the American passport *rolls eyes*.