FREE ESSAY ON STEREOTYPES- DEFINITIONAL ESSAY

STEREOTYPES- DEFINITIONAL ESSAY

Stereotypes
"Dumb jocks", "Women don't belong in a professional setting, they belong in the kitchen",
"He must be a Jew, just look at his nose." Our society is based solely on face values
where we tend to place someone in a category because of his or her actions. Prejudicial
notations used to define members of a social or ethnic group are called stereotypes. We
stereotype various groups of people, but none like women, different ethnic groups, and
athletes.
We typically stereotype women on the job. Women normally are associated with jobs such as
nurses, secretaries, and tailors. These are jobs in which most people would label as a
tender loving care job, which requires a woman's touch. Women are rarely associated with
the titles of a Doctor, Lawyer, or CEO of a company. On occasion, when women are given
positions of power, they are viewed as being power hungry and male bashers. Male
co-workers would be constantly put down by their superior, who in this case would be a
woman, because the woman had to struggle through life trying to make it in a man's world,
or so the stereotype says. In the home, women have certain household chores, that have
been naturally assigned to them: washing dishes, laundry, dusting and cleaning, and
taking care of the kids just to name a few. These chores and household duties have been
deemed a woman's job since the beginning of time; the man would go out and hunt dinner
and it would be the woman's duty to cook and prepare dinner. So, after all these years,
it is still assumed that the same duties have carried through generations. It is a
stereotype that cooking, cleaning, and raising children are women's work.
The most common stereotypes are those that are aimed towards different racial or ethnic
groups. We often stereotype young black males as being involved in a gang because of the
use of "ghetto" slang terms and the particular style and presentation of their clothes.
The media constantly portrays most gang activity as a result from the inner city black
community; however, they seldom discuss white and Asian gang activity. We also believe
that most of the African Americans make up the largest group of people on welfare, when
in reality; it is whites that are the largest group requiring public assistance.
Caucasian athletes have stereotyped blacks as being a superior athlete and competitor.
African Americans supposedly can jump higher and run faster then their fellow athletes.
The viewing public would agree with the previous statement, because it seems like it is
true when watching sporting competitions on television, but it is, nonetheless due to
stereotypes.
Professional Basketball, Football, and Baseball players have been the victims of some
harsh stereotypes in the past few years. Hearing the public stereotype professional
athletes as being dumb is not uncommon. It is a misconception, to many people, that
athletes are uneducated. The majority of professional athletes have been educated at
well-known colleges and universities, before they ever made it into the professional
teams. A popular misconception is that the educations they did earn were majors in areas
such as Liberal Arts, or other general fields of study which would not have challenge an
athlete's mental abilities. Another stereotype is that pro athletes received special
treatment while in college; if an athlete needed a certain grade to remain eligible to
play sports, then the faculty graded him or her easier than the rest of the class.
Recently, possibly due to the media, the public viewed many professional athletes as
being immune to rules, laws, and regulations. There have been incidents where athletes
were let off the hook with a slap on the wrist, when a normal American citizen would have
been locked up and 
given a stiff sentence for the same crime. We say that it is because of the athletes fame
and fortune that they were allowed to walk free, meanwhile, we forget that this may have
been the individuals first offense.
Stereotypes are products of our own individual insecurities. They make us feel better
about ourselves because we can point a finger at a person or a group. Because of
stereotypes, we have become narrow minded and less willing to be friendly to people
different from us. Stereotypes are just another product of our society, which focuses
more on the insecurities of an individual instead of who a person really is. Sadly
enough, stereotypes will be a part of modern society for many years to come. Athletes,
women, and various ethnic groups will continue to suffer.