How long have stereotypes been around

In a world where more women are deciding to not have children and they can work for themselves, maybe there is less of a difference now as roles are redefined?! Love your history behind where gender stereotyping stems from. Cultural bias is definitely the key issue in regards to this topic. We are pre conditioned from birth to think and act in a certain way.

If mom is a stay at home mom or works in an office while dad is out doing construction, we automatically assume that these are the roles of man and woman.

A lot of people refuse to believe that gender stereotyping is still an issue in America today, but it is! I recently heard that a fire station still rarely hire a woman. Another example is the army. YES, there are females in the army. For the most part, they stay on the back burner. Also, men do still get paid more than women in a lot of jobs. That right there is gender bias against man.

I believe that as much as we may want this to change, it probably never will. Wow that is intense! It does start from being a baby when names are chosen and the way parents dress up their children.

By the time I was 5 years old I had a friend that was a boy and his favorite color was hot pink which I thought was a little strange for a boy to like pink.

I never teased him for it or anything I just thought it was odd and let it be. When I was probably middle school age I was seeing Kinect and Magnetix advertised on TV and I used to beg my parents to get them for me and I remember them telling me that they were boy toys. I did eventually get the Kinect set and loved it. I would play for it for hours at a time. I was kind of lucky in a way that my dad never had a son and I used to like hanging out with him when I was little while he worked on projects around the house.

I eventually learned all about using all different kinds of tools to build things or how to work on different parts of a car. I could change my own brakes, oil, hoses etc on my car. I also was able to do construction work and wiring.

I worked with my dad flipping houses and was able to do pretty much any home improvement projects on my own without having to hire a contractor or as a man for help which is great! If he would have asked his father his dad probably would have told him no and picked on him for wanting one.

When I was little I had one of my own that was red which is considered to be a pretty gender neutral color but there is no way any boy was about to ask for one back then.

Baking was something that girls did. Now they come in two colors — pink and blue. Well I got him the blue one but it is still only being marketed to girls so the box had only girls on it. Before wrapping the gift for him I grabbed a Sharpie marker and drew beards and mustaches on all of the girls. I do have to say though that if it only came in pink or he asked for it in pink I would have gladly still gotten it for him.

This article was interesting in its effort, exploring the reasons for gender discrimination in different cultures through the historical context of agriculture. She was never directed towards girly things, but she definitely chose them for herself. Why do some transgendered children come from gender-conservative families? These families in no way influence their boy children to feel more girlish, and their girl children to feel more boyish, yet these children do indeed feel that they are not meant to be in the body of their original gender.

I think much of gender is determined by genetics and the fate of nature. Because children are who they are meant to be, and suppressing this is hurtful to their individual identity.

I like that you mention culture being a factor contributing to gender stereotypes. This has a huge impact on how children are treated and raised. My family environment and the cultural environment both had a great impact on me because that was the norm and those two things, plus the media subconsciously shaped my views.

AND media in Western culture reflects and perpetuates those societal structures. I never thought of gender segregation as part of religion until now. I think they are a necessary part of our culture and as long as they are not taken to extremes as they are in some countries around he world, I am supportive of that.

For the very religious people out there, the stereotypes are set deep in their belief systems and for many others, it is more of a boy vs. I know of several parents who are committed to raising their children gender neutral. It will be interesting to see the outcome. I do, however, allow my children to choose and express no judgement. I have a 3 year old daughter and two year old son and one day I bought her toddler nail polish and well of course they both wanted their nails done and so I did.

Hm…How will these reactions affect him in the end? I grew up the oldest of eight kids, and my youngest brothers had four older sisters, so I PROMISE you they wore some hand-me-down pink at some point in their life, and they seem to be OK.

However I do know a lot of people who are almost offended at the idea of NOT doing the gender stereotyping. One guy told me in no uncertain terms that he would be very upset if his son decided he wanted to wear pink one day. Why does it persist? Very interesting academic exploration of the origins and proliferation of gender roles and responsibilities. I think gender roles persist because we accept them. We talk about them as if they are a problem and then we still operate within the context of those gender roles.

People make gender roles bad when they begin to limit individuals who wish to operate outside of prescribed gender roles to those myopic gender roles. Women have to take a more proactive role in shaping their reality. Interesting article. I really like to go through such articles, as I get a chance to share my opinions. God has created males and females equally, but it is us who have created such a huge difference between the sexes. Segregated by gender might be cool and handy in clothing stores, but it can really hurt feelings when done in countries and among races.

We all breathe air and eat food, drink water. Color, languages, body shape does not change anything. Before men and women we are humans. It is the time to end gender stereotyping. I agree, there are drastic differences in the sexes from a biological standpoint. The media and society are notorious for taking these differences, regardless of how overlooked, or insignificant, and putting them center-stage. Here is an example. How many times have we gone into a toy store, and seen a separate isle for boys, and another for girls?

What I find a little depressing is that the toys that are marketed to girls are ones that provide pretend play in areas such as cooking, housework, and baby care, while the ones marketed towards boys provide war-like play, cars, and professional careers. What are these toys teaching our children? As a society are we really paying attention to the subliminal messages we are advocating, such as a girl is predisposed to grow into a woman who stays home and raises children while boys are better suited to work professional jobs to support their families?

Great article, and, Angie, great comment as well. Trick-or-Treating: How old is too old? Crowded Hallways. Yes, you should get the vaccine. Liberate Lunch Now. The Problem With The Cafeteria. Cancel reply. Your email address will not be published. RSS Feed. Submit Search. Close Menu. Opinion Stereotypes Will Never Die. But the thing was, Europeans were on a mission to conquer and so they denied the existence of these people; they denied the existence of already established societies by establishing their societies onto these places.

Citations: Diamond, J. March Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. This was really interesting! Finally, there is the problem of social desirability with questionnaire research — people may lie. A stereotype threat arises when one is in a situation where one has the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm a negative stereotype. It is cued by the mere recognition that a negative group stereotype could apply to you in a given situation.

It is important to understand that the person may experience a threat even if he or she does not believe the stereotype. Steele and Aronson conducted an experiment involving African American and White college students who took a difficult test using items from an aptitude test American GRE Verbal exam under one of two conditions. In the stereotype threat condition, students were told that their performance on the test would be a good indicator of their underlying intellectual abilities.

In the non-threat condition, they were told that the test was simply a problem solving exercise and was not diagnostic of ability. Performance was compared in the two conditions and results showed that African American participants performed less well than their white counterparts in the stereotype threat condition, but in the non-threat condition their performance equaled that of their white counterparts. In another study Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady, Asian women were subtly reminded with a questionnaire of either their Asian identity or their female identity prior to taking a difficult math test.

Students taking the test under stereotype threat might also become inefficient on the test by rereading the questions and the answer choices, as well as rechecking their answers, more than when not under stereotype threat.

McLeod, S. Simply Psychology. Katz, D. Racial stereotypes of one hundred college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 28,