All Mexicans are illegal, Jocks are dumb, Asians are good at math, all Christiana’s are homophobic, and anyone from a trailer park is white trash. What do all these incredibly rude phrases have in common; aside from probably being said by Donald Trump? They are all examples of harmful stereotypes; stereotypes that reinforce the idea that stereotypes are wrong! I mean, one of the smartest people I know is a blonde, and as we all know blondes are idoits. I am from a trailer park and have all of my teeth. Before you roll your eyes and start to think “That’s nice…another overdone speech about stereotypes,” STOP IT! You are stereotyping my speech before I have even gotten to the preview. You see, this is not about stereotyping others, instead this is about the stereotypes we give ourselves. Like the stereotypes I live with: I am a nerd, so I can never play sports because I am intelligent. I am a woman, so I can’t compete in a man’s world and I need to wear makeup. I am a teenager, so I adults will never listen to me. These self-stereotypes shape how we see ourselves, and this can limit everything we do. It is only when we embrace our self-stereotypes that we can begin to see past them and evolve into a better you, a better me and a better us. To begin to tackle out self-stereotypes, we must first look at why we self-stereotypes, then examine how self-stereotypes affect us, lastly, explore ways to loosen the hold that they have on us.
We all know that we stereotype others and we all know how dangerous that can be because it establishes false images of others, but many of us fail to recognize the stereotypes that we have chosen to shape our views of ourselves it is bad. The first step in destroying the stereotypes is not condemning them , but instead embracing them to understand why we do them. Authors in a 2012 Journal of Social Psychology define Self-stereotyping as “a process by which people belonging to a stigmatized social group tend to describe themselves more with stereotypical traits as compared with traits irrelevant to the ingroup stereotype.” Stereotypes are often qualities assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality or sexual orientation, to name a few. Psychologists say that we categorize or, in other words, stereotype because our brains are wired to do so automatically. Our brains are looking out for other people like us and the quickest way is to categorize based on superficial factors. Let me explain it this way, you like playing games like Magic the Gathering. You see a group of people sitting around playing Magic the Gathering and they wear dressier clothes like bow-ties, play with yo-yo’s, and go geocaching. Because you desire to fit into the group, you start going geocaching in a bowtie while learning to “Walk the Dog.” While this might not seem to be a truly scary self-stereotype, when we consider other identities like gang members, mentally challenged, or being physically different, we should stop to pause.
Despite our knowledge of the dangers, you can’t help but stereotype. You are naturally predisposedioned to stereotype. We just want to be accepted. So we just force ourselves into societies mold. What ever that mold is. We try to cut away the parts that we think don’t fit in the mold. We nip and tuck at our personalities until we think they are the perfect cookie cutter shapes we want. It just seems easier to fill the mold people cast for you than to make a new one. It is far easier to accept a stereotype than to rebel against it. So we try our hardest to try to blend in.
Now that we have come to grip with this idea that we are predisposed to self-stereotype, we need to ask the question, why does this matter. Nerds are nerds, jocks are jocks, loners, losers geeks and skaters. Who cares that they now see themselves as nothing more than Jell-o mold created by society? Who cares if we see ourselves incapable of something because society tells us that the group we are in can’t do it? Does anyone care if someone hates themselves because they are not perfect cookie cutter shapes blending seamlessly into societies’ superficial image? What is the real harm in them? I hope you could hear the sarcasm there. One of the harms is that by limiting the way we perceive ourselves we hold our selves back. I am not talking to just teenagers either. The National Research Council Committee on Aging Frontiers discusses how harmful self-stereotypes can be for people as they age. The negative stereotypes surrounding getting older can “harm the person’s quality of life” and society can miss out on all the person can offer. We start to believe that we cannot effect the things around us just because of the group we are in. We begin to believe that we are voiceless group and accept our position.
In addition when we don’t quite fit in the mold, we see ourselves as wrong. Even when we are not. Seeing yourself as “wrong” leads to us ignoring the positive parts of ourselves, we tend to only see the negative parts of our selves. We criticize ourselves and breakdown everything about us that we believe is not what society calls “perfect”. By accepting stereotypes and giving them to ourselves we open the door to seeing others as wrong. Seeing other people as wrong causes us to look down on them and their achievements. Self-stereotyping are not only limiting, but they can be deadly too. This concept can best be summed up in S E Hinton’s classic book The Outsiders. You have Ponyboy who is constantly teased by his friends in the Greasers group because he is book smart and if you come from that side of town, you are defined by your toughness, not your smarts. Ponyboy struggles with his place in his self-stereotyped world and acts to “fit in” and be one of the guys. It is not until the death of several friends and nearly dying himself, that Ponyboy beings to understand that you do not need to be limited by your own stereotypes.
So, how do we become golden like Ponyboy without having to experience as much loss and heartache as he did? To take the steps to fix this we need to embrace the self-stereotypes first and then begin to dispose of them. In the book Blindspot, Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald explore hidden biases that we carry from a lifetime of experiences with social groups – age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, or nationality. To embrace self-stereotypes we need to first recognize that hidden biases exist. A hidden bias is a bias that we don’t consciously recognize. They are normally small things that slightly change the way you view people. Marinna Konnikova writes “If you don’t realize you have it, you can’t do anything to combat the influences that come with it when they are working against you, as happens with negative stereotypes that hinder performance—and even when they are working for you (as can happen if you activate positively-associated stereotypes), you may be able to better tap the benefits if you are aware that they are there to begin with.” Now that we know that hidden biases exist we can recognize them. We now recognize those biases and can learn to accept them.
Now that we have recognized and accepted our own hidden biases we can see and accept that abnormalities are the norm. Just think about it. Every person has their own quirk, something that makes them different and amazing and utterly stunning. To understand this MONUMENTAL topic first what exactly is "normal"? With all of the changes associated with our shifting societal standards we can’t even define normal with any real accuracy. Well, since the concept of “normal” can’t even be defined we cannot apply it to people then abnormal is normal. So to stop self-stereotypes we must first accept that biases exist then second we need to accept that abnormalities are the norm.
What have we discovered today? Donald Trump is an insensitive jerk, Magic the Gathering is an awesome game, and we are hard-wired to stereotype not just others, but ourselves. Society shapes the mold and we try our hardest to fit in. This can limit the way we perceive ourselves we hold our selves back. However, by acknowledging those self-stereotypes we will begin to dispose of them.
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