1OStereotypes

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.

These groups’ reputations worsen when tensions are high and violence occurs. Furthermore, social science teacher Robin Grenz said the media, including literature, worsens the situation by often reinforcing harmful stereotypes like that Black people are more dangerous than white people. She cited minstrel shows as one of the most effective ways that negative Black stereotypes spread in the 19th and 20th centuries.

These stereotypes reinforced prior discriminatory views and became deeply ingrained in society. They partially fueled racist policies like housing discrimination and Jim Crow laws, which further held up existing stereotypes by disproportionately keeping Black Americans poorer than white Americans.

How deeply negative Black stereotypes are rooted in American society can be seen through public opinion of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. TIME reports that 93% of the protests were peaceful, yet in a poll conducted by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), 42% of people said that “most protesters (associated with the BLM movement) are trying to incite violence or destroy property.”

The Washington Post attributes this sentiment to media companies like Fox News, who cater to a conservative audience, that overwhelmingly showed more violence and destruction than peaceful protests. This out-ofbalance reporting contributed to confirmation bias, leading people to believe that most of the protests were not civil.

Also, the BLM demonstrations, though largely peaceful, were met with more police violence than the January 6 attack on the capital, a protest comprised mostly of Anglo-Saxon white Americans, displaying the racially unequal attitudes that exist in the police system.

Yet, categorizing people can be helpful, as well. Senior Sophia Robinson, who identifies as lesbian, believes that stereotypes can be ad-

vantageous in queer dating when the person is not necessarily out of the closet but still wants people to know they are LGBTQ. She also has to mentally evaluate other people when out with her girlfriend to keep themselves safe. “It’s kind of like a safety thing,” Robinson said. “You have to read the room and the situation because people are going to stereotype you into possibly being gay, and you have to stereotype them back. You have to consider: ‘are you going to be homophobic and be aggressive towards me?’” Additionally, oftentimes women have to use social categorization to try to keep themselves safe from sexual assault. “People always talk about A report issued by the how we have gotten too sen- U.S. Department of Justice concluded that sitive, but I remember when I 99.6% of offenders of was growing up, some of the rape serving sentencstuff they said actually hurt es in state prisons were men, and The Guardquite a bit.” ian found that men - Jeffrey Wang, Sophomore who join fraternities are “three times more likely to” commit sexual assault. In a TIME article, writer Jessica Bennett stated about her experience with Greek Life, “We learned the rules to frat life quickly, or at least we thought we did. Never let your drink out of your sight.” Therefore, although it’s an obvious statement that a small minority of men are predators, women have to prepare for the worst. It is always the responsibility of the perpetrator, not the victim, to prevent sexual assault, but women are forced to categorize people in certain situations, based on prior knowledge, for their own safety. This type of “stereotyping” is usually essential in keeping vulnerable people safe, but it’s a slippery slope to fall into using it to discriminate in the name of safety. So how do we eradicate these single-story narratives? Grenz says, like most problems, the path to progress starts with education, which she seeks to do in her own social studies classes. “Breaking stereotypes is by highlighting achievements, looking at resiliency, recognizing that we’re all part of this collective humanity,” Grenz said.