Characteristics Of Gender Stereotyping

Stereotypes are simple images or beliefs over the attributes assigned to a particular social group, are models of behavior that become schemes deeply rooted in our mentalities to the point that we adopt them as part of human naturalness. Stereotypes can be racial, religious, sexual and social. These could be the caused of a known incident or attitude years earlier, or simply the result of frequent rumors. Stereotypes can affect different spheres of society. These assumptions can filter into many aspects of life.

People get categorized by stereotypes everyday just by outward appearances or the group of people they are associated with. A stereotype is a preconceived notion about a group of people. People form fixed images of a group that are assumed that all group members act and behave is a particular way. A person essentially gets stereotyped by being “guilty by association” of a particular group. All stereotypes get based off of a bit of truths that all group members similarly have.

Stereotypes form because of people unintentionally passing on social information to one another (Martin, Hutchison, Slessor, Urquhart, Cunningham, Smith, 2014). Information that is generally complex gets passed onto others who unwillingly select simple traits creating categories for people (Martin, 2014). Whether it be our own family members, teachers, peers, the media, etc., who pass the idea of stereotypes on to us it is almost impossible to avoid any of the information. Research suggest that stereotypes begin with slight aspects of the truth that over time explodes into overwhelming ideas of what others should or should not be (Jacobs, 2014). Stereotype inconsistent information is any information that does not conform with societies general idea of stereotypes (Kashima, Lyons, & Clark, 2013).

Today, we are living in a very complex social environment. In today’s society, people are stereotyped in many different ways depending which category an individual is located in. Haven’t you been stereotyped at some point in your life? Or you may have stereotyped someone without even noticing it. Stereotyping is actually more serious than we thought and it is becoming a major problem in our society today. But what is stereotyping? According to the dictionary, stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardised conception or image invested with special meaning and help in common by members of a group.” Moreover, it is considered as a form of prejudice, as people are putting labels about how a person should act or live according to their gender, nationality, religion, personality or appearance. This creates pre judgment, including misconceptions, which can develop further, leading to bigger problems and complications.

Jocks Maintaining school grades, staying injury free, and competing for the number one spot for a sport can all be hard for just a high school student. Being a jock is a very tough, and yet society would much rather see them as the handsome, muscular, and the less smart person in school. Stereotypes are what people believe, misconceptions are the stereotypes people exaggerate, then they tend to believe them as true. Stereotypes are usually determined by society, misconceptions are made by people who believe in the ones spreading the stereotype.

That is putting everyone in a certain category, making people feel isolated, especially if they are young. I hear about stereotypes every day if it is by my peers or social media. I would like to talk about a stereotype I get all the time. The statement is as follows, “ Southerners are people who like country music; if you don’t; your not southern”. Now, my family is the definition

Some peer groups can be good and some can be bad. The peer group that I was a part of in high school was bad. In high school I was always a little different and did not have many fiends because the clique or peer group in my high school used the Social Typing which is a “labeling process that begins when a person violates a norm. Negate sanctions are applied to norm violates in the form of criticisms, punishments, and/or labels.” They labeled me as a “dorky weird girl.”

Stereotypes have been around for decades, and are still prominent today. In today’s society, everybody stereotypes one another, but will not admit that they do. Stereotypes can either be positive or negative. Usually stereotypes are used in a negative approach and can be degrading to an individual. Misconceptions are also used by individuals and can be harmful and unreasonable.

On the other side of social groups, you have the outsiders’ clicks. Emo, shy, kids with anxiety and/or depression of course the poor, and what most people consider to be nerds and geek. Typically, when people think of an emo person, they assume it’s someone depressed. Not all emo kids are depressed; a majority of them actually just like dark music and things. Shy and anxiety are normally classified as the same thing, by anxiety is wanting to talk to people but having the fear you will say the wrong thing.

For example, jocks, nerds, prodigies and many more. Lindsay Goobersoly wrote an article on different types of stereotypes on college students. One of Goobersoly’s stereotypes is about a guy categorized as a nerd and says, “He walks into class wearing glasses, a button up, and some nice blue jeans that momma picked out for him.” This is an exaggerated stereotype because there’s no way a college student is being made fun of because of the way he dressed. College students do not go to school to make fun of others in the way other people dress, that is lamentable.

These stereotypes are based on people who believe everything they see or read and obtain their judgments based on personal experience. Someone who sees a teenage boy with long hair and ripped baggy clothes riding a skateboard will automatically think he is a troublemaker, or that girl who is walking to class with glasses and carrying a group of books is a nerd. Why are these stereotypes the only assets these people are? There are more to these teenagers then what they are being stereotyped by.

Everyone goes through one point of life not being able to fit in a group. Some people believe that being an outsider isn’t universal, however, if everyone fits in why is would bullying be a big problem in schools. People also believe that everyone has groups to fit in, but not everyone fits in social classes. From my experience, I know what it’s like to not fully fit in with the popular kids. They don’t really talk to you and they believe that they are more superior, which is not the case at all.

Stereotyping is a way of categorizing certain groups of people or types of individuals with regards to gender, race, culture, religion etc. Stereotyping arises from prior assumptions due to influences by the media, history and personal experience. The statement: “To gain an understanding of the world we need to make use of stereotypes,” appears that stereotyping is required in order to really understand the world, and knowledge issues can be drawn from this statement: Does stereotyping prevent us from knowing someone truly and how are stereotypes created in the first place? One way to examine and discuss the knowledge issues is to look at different areas of knowledge, which in our case will be History and Human Science. Since the concept of stereotyping holds a broad scope, the essay will narrow down the focus to ethnic groups and their culture.

I definitely had a little trouble finding the right group in high school. I started out thinking I could fit into the mainstream by being someone I was not. Our society needs to condition the youth that being you is what the mainstream believes in and uniqueness. When in reality those people who are

Social groups range from jocks to Goth to nerds, everyone has their uniquely personal signature. We from them out of the things we like, our music could be similar, or interests can be similar. The best group of friends I ever formed was a group composed of all of the social groups. It sounds cheesy but we formed through a computer science class.