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Stereotyping and prejudice

Have you ever been stereotyped for any reason?

What did feel about that, when people call you A nerd just because you do your assignments, or just like a girl when you are crying,  when they avoid you because they think of you as a terrorist just because your bearded or veiled!

Well, stereotyping has a very close relation with other meanings, it is not only harmful in their own right; they do damage by fostering prejudice and discrimination.

Prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination often go hand-in-hand, but it is also possible to have one without the others. When an ethnic group is stereotyped with a neutral or positive attribute such as "family-oriented," prejudice and discrimination may not be involved. Similarly, a generalized prejudice against "foreigners" or "amputees" may not include specific stereotypes or acts of discrimination. There are even times when discrimination takes place without prejudice or stereotyping, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Prejudice itself can be based upon a number of factors including sex, race, age, sexual orientations, nationality, socioeconomic status and religion. Some of the most well-known types of prejudice include: Racism

Sexism, Classicism, Homophobia, Nationalism, Religious prejudice or Ageism

But, in many cases, prejudices are based upon stereotypes; a stereotype is a simplified assumption about a group based on prior assumptions. Stereotypes can be both positive ("women are warm and nurturing") or negative ("teenagers are lazy"). Stereotypes can lead to faulty beliefs, but they can also result in both prejudice and discrimination.

According to psychologist Gordon Allport, prejudice and stereotypes emerge in part as a result of normal human thinking. In order to make sense of the world around us, it is important to sort information into mental categories because this helps us to get more familiar with them, but we see that this is not a sufficient for the results of stereotyping, This process of categorization applies to the social world as well, as we sort people into mental groups based on factors such as age, sex and race and this means we always tend to label others whatever this is based upon facts or just the work of our imagination.

So, being a person who stereotypes others or being stereotyped is not always a good thing for societies because mainly it generates some sort of prejudice, discrimination and above all it hurts those who are not to be a part of what you are calling them.

Then, how to reduce prejudice?

Prejudice can be reduced or even eliminated. Training people to become more empathetic to members of other groups is one method that has shown considerable success. By imaging themselves in the same situation, people are able to think about how they would react and gain a greater understanding of other people's actions.

We can even pass laws and regulations that require fair and equal treatment for all groups of people, gaining public support and awareness for anti-prejudice social norms and breaking stereotypes attitudes, making people aware of the inconsistencies in their own beliefs just like what breaking stereotypes team has made. A blog in which you can get a close look on the meaning of stereotyping and its results and finally we can increase contacts with people of the same social groups in order to clear any barriers between classes that create generalization at last.

 To come to an end for this article, the message is that ' we are all human beings we are not what others want us to be or look like, everyone has their own identity and power. Just stop stereotyping because it's a destructive tool for any society' 

Written by: Aya Youssef 

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Stereotyping in general   

                                              

Many of people may do not know the meaning of stereotyping in the first glimpse, but this is what we all do. Yes, we all stereotyped each other without realizing this. People around the world are categorized or stereotyped in a way or another. There are the Arabs, Americans, Europeans, Asians, Latino Americans. Every sector has his own style in life, so they are stereotyped. Stereotyping has its positive and negative sides, reasons, kinds, examples and effects.

First stereotyping does not come from nothing, but it has its reasons. One of these reasons is ignorance of the other. People do not know each other well , they took the old picture of the other as a cliché without exerting any effort to recognize him. The second reason is Media as media plays a big role in this. It always delivers typical and old pictures of some groups or sectors of people. The third one is refusal of change as people prefer to keep their clichés whatever happened or changed because they are not aware of what happened around them and how people change in every way and manner by the time. Thus these reasons are some of why stereotyping is controlling people everywhere.

In addition of reasons, they are effects of stereotyping which influenced the other who is stereotyped. The effects lie in how those people struggle in life to change the bad impact of them. It also shows in how people treat them maybe they treat them in a proper way maybe in bad or disgusting way. This effect does not influence those who are stereotyped only, but those who are stereotyping them also. As they imprisoned themselves in a narrow point where they do not change or develop their ideas about the other, in other words they end up losing communication with the other. So, effect of stereotyping does not hurt the stereotyped only, but the stereotyping also.

As there are reasons and effects of stereotyping, there are also kinds of stereotyping which are very numeral. There are racial, religious, social, economics, etc… All of  these kinds have been created by people, by their minds, by their thoughts and by their old-fashioned ideas. These kinds are symbols of how people separate and created hatred by themselves. They show how every human being can be very cruel to his brother. In any case these kinds should be refused by the new cultured enlightened generation who knows the value of every Man on the earth.

As long as there are kinds of stereotyping, there are examples of stereotyping too. The examples of stereotyping vary in every way. There are many examples in cinema and television as there is always the bossy mother-in-law in the Egyptian media, the wild Indian in the American media and so on. On another side there is the stereotyping of the Jews as mean and stingy persons and stereotyping of The Black as a low class or slaves. There is also stereotyping of all Asians which pictures all of them playing Kong Fu in their daily life every time and everywhere. Another example of stereotyping is the stereotyping of women as talkative and moody. All of those examples are just hints or glimpses of many and many examples of stereotyping all over the world.

In conclusion, stereotyping has very hard roots in the world and people themselves. It is very clear now that people themselves is the basic reason of stereotyping in addition of other conditions. Although stereotyping controls the world, people should overcome it and start to lead a good life without this shameful thing, without its kinds, without its examples. They should try to recognize their reasons of stereotyping and overcome them. They should forget and delete something called stereotyping from their life.

Written by: Aya Khaled

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   Social media & stereotyping

     Facebook is where everyone is at. Twitter is just broadcast. Google+ is a ghost town. Pinterest is only for women. Instagram is just selfish and food pictures. Snapchat is missing the point of "social".Six social media platforms, out of many, each with different uses. Uses that often generate stereotypical perceptions.

     How do we communicate? What are we communicating on a daily basis? We communicate through our words and actions. Whether that is in person, verbally (phone) or on social media, those words and actions tells others a lot or very little about whom we are.We use social media to communicate with each other in greater ways today. Facebook posts, tweets on Twitter, photos on Instagram all have formed new ways of communicating with each other. Some are effective. Some are not. It's not just what we say that is communication. It's also how we interpret.

     Think about a 140-character tweet. Sarcasm can be lost if you don't know the person tweeting. It's a natural assumption by the person tweeting that the readers will just get their intention. That is just one of many reasons people don't get Twitter and leave the platform.

     Think about a Facebook post. Family drama and squabbles. Complaints about the job or latest retail transaction. High school classmates sharing the hottest which one are you Buzz feed post. Do you really need even a small percentage of 1 billion users sharing that on your timeline? That is just one of many reasons people grow weary of Facebook and leave the platform.Think about an Instagram post. No, not the selfish and food pictures from your friends. Think about it from a brand's standpoint. Ever look at their posts? Whereas Facebook and Twitter's format allows for greater dialogue with fans, Instagram, by its very mobile-nature doesn't allow much room for that for a brand. Search the comments on a major league account or a major team and you'll see spam and meaningless drivel filling the stream. Why bother reading the comments, if you're a brand.

     Social networking like Facebook shows that men are from Mars, women are from Venus gender stereotypes exist not only in the physical world, but online, according to a new study.Women tend to use the sites to compare themselves with others online, whereas men tend to use the sites to look at profiles and search for more friends, concluded a study.Further, women tend to post face pictures, while men post full body shots, according to a survey published in the December issue of the journal Cyber psychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

      STOP stereotyping me ,not because I am a girl and I put my picture on the Facebook means that I am not polite . Stop stereotyping me not because I  choose any nick name doesn't mean that the profile is fake or that I am a shallow person .  Facebook, Facebook nowadays become a known site all over the world. If you ask any teenager do you have a Facebook account? he/she will reply yes, of course. Many girls in different ages were happy to put their pictures on the Facebook that doesn't mean that they are not good. Facebook not made to judge people it made to communicate with our friends and have fun. Stop stereotyping people. Stereotyping reach the Facebook also. If a boy talk to girl in a chat box and said Alsalamo Alikom doesn't mean that he is religious. Not because I spend most of the time writing statuses and chatting with my friends doesn't mean that I don't have anything to do and I am free. please , stop stereotyping me !!!!!!!!!!!!

Written by: Israa Attia 

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Arab Stereotyping

One of the most well-known examples of stereotyping is the image of Arabs in America and what is the attitude of the Americans towards them. Americans treat the Arab community as terrorists especially after 9/11. There are many reasons that make Americans treat Arabs in that way and there are also many ways through which they can deliver their message.

       Firstly, political and economic reasons lead Americans to create the image of being threatened from Arabs .Since 1974, the majority of press articles shows Arabs threatening security and peace of the American community which has been grossly caricatured on television. Indeed, without the ethnical obligation of objectivity, the entertainment media has given us the most extremely stereotyped image of the Arab present in the American culture. For example recent popular and political discourses on immigration portray “illegal” immigrants from Latino countries as a threat to the economy and safety of the nation. Couple this with the fact that there are few, positive representations of Latinos in mainstream Hollywood movies and television, and savvy consumers of media will recognize the persistent bias (39% of adults in the NVP survey did). But much like Jewish and African American organizations, Latino groups have become more numerous and more vocal in responding to negative representations.

           Secondly, media is the main way that can affect people. In TV and movies, Arabs are portrayed as either bombers, belly dancers, or billionaires .Professor Evely Alsultany in her 2012 book, Arabs and Muslims in the media: Race representation after 9/11,Alsultany takes on shows like 24,Homeland and Tyrant, and discusses how they reinforce negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, even though their positive characters. Furthermore, there are numerous films that lead to the same result such as The Sheik  (1921) and The Son of the Sheik (1926) .Media can reach every citizen in the U.S., so it can affect their minds.

       Unlike such kind of movies which portray Muslims as terrorists, there are many movies that can reflect how Arabs are not different from other American citizens such as Civic Duty (2006).It portrays how can suspect leads to crimes. As Terry decides to take action with his own hands after suspecting his Arab neighbor to be a jihadist. The plot basically depends on how we can be wrong and how far  we can reach if we believe in stereotyping.

         To sum up, there are many reasons that lead to affect the image of Arabs in America especially economic and political factors. Furthermore, Americans use many ways to deliver their message to the world such as TV, movies or the use media generally to affect people. Creative and different people exist all over the world who can cooperate in breaking the idea of stereotyping especially Arabs stereotyping like the crew of the movies or films defending Arabs culture and their real identity. So one should make his/her mind to be able to choose what is right and what is wrong.

Written by: Amaa Mahmoud

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Stereotype Examples

To understand different examples of stereotypes, you should first define what a stereotype is. Any time you grouping races or individuals together and make a judgment about them without knowing them, this is an example of a stereotype. Racial remarks, sexual remarks, and gender remarks are the biggest stereotypes.

Common Stereotypes

Racial Profiling

One of the more common stereotype examples is stereotypes surrounding race. For example, saying that all Blacks are good at sports is a stereotype, because it’s grouping the race together to indicate that everyone of that race is a good athlete.

Gender Profiling

There are also some common stereotypes of men and women, such as:

Men are strong and do all the work.

Men are the "backbone."

Women aren't as smart as a man.

Women can’t do as good of a job as a man.

Girls are not good at sports.

Guys are messy and unclean.

Men who spend too much time on the computer or read are geeks.

Cultures

Stereotypes also exist about cultures an countries as a whole. Stereotype examples of this sort include the premises that:

All white Americans are obese, lazy, and dim-witted. Homer Simpson of the TV series The Simpsons is the personification of this stereotype.

Mexican stereotypes suggest that all Mexicans are lazy and came into America illegally.

All Arabs and Muslims are terrorists.

All people who live in England have bad teeth.

Italian or French people are the best lovers.

All Blacks outside of the United States are poor.

All Jews are greedy.

All Asians are good at math. All Asians like to eat rice and drive slow.

All Irish people are drunks and eat potatoes.

All Americans are generally considered to be friendly, generous, and tolerant, but also arrogant, impatient, and domineering.

Groups of Individuals

A different type of stereotype also involves grouping of individuals. Skaters, Goths, Gangsters, and Preps are a few examples. Most of this stereotyping is taking place in schools. For example:

Goths wear black clothes, black makeup, are depressed and hated by society.

Punks wear mohawks, spikes, chains, are a menace to society and are always getting in trouble.

All politicians are philanders and think only of personal gain and benefit.

Girls are only concerned about physical appearance.

All blonds are unintelligent.

All librarians are women who are old, wear glasses, tie a high bun, and have a perpetual frown on their face.

All teenagers are rebels.

All children don't enjoy healthy food.

Only anorexic women can become models.

The elderly have health issues and behave like children.

What Is a Stereotype

The definition of a stereotype is any commonly known public belief about a certain social group or a type of individual. Stereotypes are often confused with prejudices, because, like prejudices, a stereotype is based on a prior assumption. Stereotypes are often created about people of specific cultures or races.

Almost every culture or race has a stereotype, including Jewish people, Blacks, Irish people, and Polish people, among others.

Stereotypes are not just centered on different races and backgrounds, however. Gender stereotypes also exist. For example, if you say that men are better than women, you’re stereotyping all men and all women. If you say that all women like to cook, you are stereotyping women.

Why Is it Bad to Stereotype?

Stereotyping is not only hurtful, it is also wrong. Even if the stereotype is correct in some cases, constantly putting someone down based on your preconceived pereptions will not encourage them to succeed.

Stereotyping can lead to bullying form a young age. Jocks and Preps pick on the Nerds and the Geeks; Skaters pick on the Goths, so on and so forth. Stereotyping is encouraging bullying behavior that children carry into adulthood.

Stereotyping can also lead people to live lives driven by hate, and can cause the victims of those stereotypes to be driven by fear. For example, many gays and lesbians are afraid to admit their sexuality in fear of being judged. It is a lose-lose situation, both for those who are doing the stereotype and those who are victims.

 Written by: Aya Mohamed

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