JovialJman - Stereotypes

"Irony is when you use a picture of a woman with a tattoo as your header image for a post about stereotypes." - OddballGreg

The Human brain likes to order information into groups of data which can potentially assist them in their endeavors. Unfortunately, this grouping of data can often lead to various negative social beliefs, most importantly being that of stereotyping which can lead to tension between racial and ethnic groups. Lets talk about that.

Stereotyping is defined as when you classify a group of people or things on certain characteristics or traits that they may have. These classifications are usually oversimplified and often a fixed notion in peoples minds. Stereotyping is very widespread and most of us contribute to it, usually without even realizing it. Consider the following cartoon from Cyanide and Happiness:

Taken from here, the original from here didn't want to load.

 If you laugh at it, then you likely know of the stereotype involving Jewish people and understand how ridiculous it is. Now Jewish people do not eat non-Kosher food and shellfish, in this case shrimp, is one of those non-Kosher foods that they are not allowed to eat. So the joke is on the person offering the shrimp, but he doesn't know that they do not eat it and thus thinks the Jew doesn't want to pay according to the widely known stereotype.

Stereotypes can help make sense of the world and can be classified as a way to categorize things. This helps to simplify and add structure to the information which thereby enables you to identify, recall, predict and react to new information a bit quicker which may potentially save your life in a threatening situation, or simply save time and energy. This way stereotypes are somewhat like a shortcut to make sense of one's social context, often at the cost of being judgmental of those you know nothing about yet.

Taken from here.

There are some stereotypes about nations like the belief that Africa is a country. It's also believed that we have lions and various other wild animals running around the streets that we build our mud huts around. (Hang on a sec while I go pet my pet lion and  feed my elephant which I ride to work each day). Then there are people who know we have cities but think that they will get robbed every 10 seconds if they ever visit them. While it is true that we have a fair amount of crime, it is merely one of our country specific social issues, such as those any other country like America or Britain have, that we have.

Then there are more widespread stereotypes like those involving gender. Men open up jars with tight lids and they think of sex constantly while women stay in the kitchen and take long to get ready when they are going anywhere. (The latter is frequently true, but it's often worth it for how AMAZING they look afterwards.) Then there are those involving specific characteristics like blonde and dumb or gingers having no souls.

This is a good representation on some stereotypes. Image taken from here.

I will admit that I knew less about the stereotypes pertaining to my own specific traits as I never really hear about them. I often hear those of other races and the other gender, as it's typical for people to discuss these stereotypes with those it does not pertain to. It was rather intriguing that  people tend to spread the stereotypes of the groups of people they do not relate to, perhaps as a way to promote their own stereotype. (This is likely driven by the human need to relate to other people. Food for thought).

People are not the only thing that gets stereotyped. For instance the "all rabbits eat carrots" stereotype originated from the popular cartoon character Bugs Bunny. At the time that Joseph Benson "Ben/Bugs" Hardaway was designing the art for Bugs Bunny, there was a film called It Happened One Night, in which a character was seen eating a carrot and talking nonchalantly while his mouth was still full. Joseph decided to mock that scene in his design of Bug Bunny, and at the time people would have understood the reference, but since then over the course of years it became common belief that all rabbits eat carrots. (Which is actually not that good for them.)

All in all, stereotypes are a common human psychological element that mostly everyone does as it is an effective strategy for self preservation on a subconscious level, despite the deplorable consequence of judging people you do not yet know anything about. If you enjoyed this post and found anything interesting or thought provoking, please let us know down in the comments or on Facebook/Twitter as we LOVE to hear from you. If you think any of your friends or relatives would like to read this post, please share it with them. Of course, if you enjoyed this post and would like to see more like it, please consider liking us on Facebook or for the twitters you can follow us on Twitter with the associated buttons on the bar to the left, so that you can read the latest blog posts as they are published. Thank you for reading today's post and I shall speak again soon.

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