March 2O21
Lifestyles
11
In theory, no. In practice, yes. no programming at all. 30% of the girls who had watched the traditional programming drew a female scientist, while a greater 75% of the girls who had seen the clips of women in STEM careers did. Furthermore, The New York Times revealed in a study they conducted that by age 6, “young girls are less likely than boys to view their own gender as brilliant.” Although mentally categorizing people is a natural cognitive process, Walker said that concluding that stereotypes apply to all people in a particular group leads to discrimination. “What is more important is what you do with those stereotypes,” Walker said. “How does that affect your behavior? … And when it comes to people being treated unfairly, unjustly, unkindly, that’s not a stereotype anymore; that’s discrimination.” Sophomore Jeffrey Wang is first-generation Chinese American and said that although some Asian stereotypes might be seen as flattering, like being smart, they still can negatively affect one’s sense of self. He can mostly tell when people are joking about stereotypes, but after having lived in three states across the U.S., he believes that stereotyping is widespread. “I used to get kind of mad about it [stereotyping] when I was in elementary school, but after a few years, you kind of deal with it,” Wang said. From microaggressions to systemic oppression, stereotypes harm marginalized communities. “People always talk about how we have gotten too sensitive, but I remember when I was growing up, some of the stuff they said actually hurt quite a bit,” Wang said. “Especially when you’re growing, especially when those are your first impressions of people … As you get older, it’s not that bad. It’s just when you’re young, that’s when you learn about other people, you know? That’s when you start to learn about what society is like.” One of the greatest examples of the manifestation of stereotypes in America is police brutality. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, police brutality fueled by discriminatory ideology is not new; groups that historically were deemed as threats — Jews, southern and eastern Europeans, Mexicans, Muslims, the LGBTQ community and African Americans
— have all been targets. vantageous in queer dating when the person is These groups’ reputations worsen when not necessarily out of the closet but still wants tensions are high and violence occurs. Fur- people to know they are LGBTQ. She also has thermore, social science teacher Robin Grenz to mentally evaluate other people when out said the media, including literature, worsens with her girlfriend to keep themselves safe. the situation by often reinforcing harmful ste“It’s kind of like a safety thing,” Robinson reotypes like that Black people are more dan- said. “You have to read the room and the sitgerous than white people. She cited minstrel uation because people are going to stereotype shows as one of the most effective ways that you into possibly being gay, and you have to negative Black stereotypes spread in the 19th stereotype them back. You have to consider: and 20th centuries. ‘are you going to be homophobic and be agThese stereotypes reinforced prior discrim- gressive towards me?’” inatory views and became deeply ingrained Additionally, oftentimes women have to use in society. They partially fueled racist policies social categorization to try to keep themselves like housing discrimisafe from sexual assault. nation and Jim Crow “People always talk about A report issued by the laws, which further held Department of how we have gotten too sen- U.S. up existing stereotypes Justice concluded that by disproportionately sitive, but I remember when I 99.6% of offenders of keeping Black Ameri- was growing up, some of the rape serving sentenccans poorer than white es in state prisons were stuff they said actually hurt men, and The GuardAmericans. How deeply negative quite a bit.” ian found that men Black stereotypes are who join fraternities are - Jeffrey Wang, Sophomore “three times more likely rooted in American society can be seen through to” commit sexual aspublic opinion of last summer’s Black Lives sault. In a TIME article, writer Jessica Bennett Matter protests. TIME reports that 93% of stated about her experience with Greek Life, the protests were peaceful, yet in a poll con- “We learned the rules to frat life quickly, or at ducted by the Armed Conflict Location & least we thought we did. Never let your drink Event Data Project (ACLED), 42% of people out of your sight.” said that “most protesters (associated with the Therefore, although it’s an obvious stateBLM movement) are trying to incite violence ment that a small minority of men are predor destroy property.” ators, women have to prepare for the worst. It The Washington Post attributes this senti- is always the responsibility of the perpetrator, ment to media companies like Fox News, who not the victim, to prevent sexual assault, but cater to a conservative audience, that over- women are forced to categorize people in cerwhelmingly showed more violence and de- tain situations, based on prior knowledge, for struction than peaceful protests. This out-of- their own safety. balance reporting contributed to confirmation This type of “stereotyping” is usually essenbias, leading people to believe that most of the tial in keeping vulnerable people safe, but it’s a protests were not civil. slippery slope to fall into using it to discrimiAlso, the BLM demonstrations, though nate in the name of safety. largely peaceful, were met with more police So how do we eradicate these single-story violence than the January 6 attack on the capi- narratives? Grenz says, like most problems, the tal, a protest comprised mostly of Anglo-Saxon path to progress starts with education, which white Americans, displaying the racially un- she seeks to do in her own social studies classes. equal attitudes that exist in the police system. “Breaking stereotypes is by highlighting Yet, categorizing people can be helpful, as achievements, looking at resiliency, recognizwell. Senior Sophia Robinson, who identifies ing that we’re all part of this collective humanas lesbian, believes that stereotypes can be ad- ity,” Grenz said.
