Whether it is a gender, an ethnic group, or religion, society constantly bombards everyone with stereotypes. These stereotypes are reinforced when there might be some truth to them. But generalities are unfair, and often wrong, when applied to individuals.
Society used genders, ethnicity, and religious roles to define specific roles within society for centuries. “A girl’s favorite color should be pink and a boy’s favorite color must be blue”, “a British is always dressed in a hat, coat and have moustache” or “a Muslim is always a terrorist and a Hindu is not a non-vegetarian”. These judgmental opinions towards individuals lead to the creation of stereotypes.
Furthermore, these creations impact young children by influencing their thought process which leads to encouragement of categories set in the society. Stereotypes by influencing the thinking, restricts children from viewing and understanding an individual through several perspectives and force them to have a tunnel vision. A study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found many norms around gender, what is expected of boys and girls, become rooted in adolescence and have negative impacts that carry into adulthood.
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They are instructed to conform to the likes and dislikes set by the society for them. Nevertheless, parents too buy girls, dolls and boy, cars. “Did you conscientiously buy dolls for your son and cars for your daughter, or did you try to avoid the whole thing and give them both gender-neutral wooden objects?” Looking at how children play with toys leads them to gender stereotypes provide us a view on children’s developing sense of what goes along with being a girl or a boy. As researched by Lauren Spinner, a developmental psychologist at University of Kent in her published study ‘Sex Roles’, “effect of four to seven-year old’s images of children playing with either stereotypic or counter-stereotypic