Stereotypes: They Hurt
“Lads do football, or boxing, or wrestling. Not frigging ballet!” — Jackie Elliot to his son, Billy Elliot (2000)
In the North of England in 1984, a 11-year-old boy, Billy Elliot, gets bored at boxing and wants to dance. Everyone looks at him with wide eyes and his father strongly disagrees. Boys are expected to go to the gym, and girls to attend ballet lessons. The reverse is inconceivable.
But… Why?
Why should girls be playing with dolls and boys with cars?
From an early age, children are confronted with gender stereotypes. A 2017 study showed that kids believe in gender stereotypes by age 10. From India to the United States, children internalise the idea that boys are strong and independent, whereas girls are vulnerable and passive. If fairytales about princesses rescued by Prince Charming can make children dream, it can also vehicle such stereotypes that we internalise, if repeated.
This internalisation has effects on career preferences as well. At a very young age, children are able to classify occupations into “feminine” and “masculine” categories, leading them to more turn towards “gender-appropriate” occupational choices. This is confirmed by this study, where participants were first asked to list 5 to 10 suitable occupations for them. Results? Both men and women reported jobs compatible with their gender.
“What’s wrong with that?” you may wonder. What’s wrong with children believing in fairytales, and with choosing a job compatible with their gender?
There’s nothing wrong with that itself. But what’s wrong is when the idea is so rooted in people’s mind that it controls their behaviour and their thoughts. In many countries, women are still unable to work, or they earn a lower wage than men, based on the assumption that they are less competent and less compatible for the role.
That is stereotyping.
Lawrence Blum, an American philosopher, defines stereotypes as “false or misleading generalisations about groups held in a manner that renders them largely, though not entirely, immune to conterevidence”. In other words, it’s hard, even impossible according to Blum, to abandon stereotypes when they have been implemented in our mind. A person who believes that Black people are violent will refuse any evidence proving the opposite, or will consider it as an exception, without giving up the stereotyped statement.
This rigidity is a feature of stereotypes, Blum highlights. It’s one of the reasons why stereotyping is harmful, among others listed below.
“They are all the same.”
People holding the stereotype fail to consider the members of the group as individuals, which may be seen as a form of disrespect. Who would like to be seen as violent whereas they are not?
“They are only like that.”
Stereotyping masks the internal diversity of the group by ignoring the qualities other than the stereotyped traits. If people think that all Asian-Americans are excellent students, they would tend to ignore that Asian-Americans are not always studying, but also like relaxing and going to party.
“They are different from us.”
Associating a characteristic to a certain group differentiates it from others, amplifying social divisions. The group may be portrayed as inferior -women as less intelligent- as well as superior -Asian Americans as good students- to other groups.
All stereotypes are bad, but some are worse than others.
Stereotypes are even more harmful if they are historically and socially rooted. The misleading idea of Jews being ‘money-grabbing’ fed the hatred against them. Stereotypes of Black people go back to colonialism and slavery. No need to remind the consequences resulting from these misconceptions. Discrimination, stigmatisation, racism, xenophobia; often, stereotypes are found at their base.
When M. Night Shyamalan’s Split was released, many critics rallied against the misrepresentation of people suffering from dissociative identity disorder (DID). In the movie, Kevin Crumb, a man diagnosed with 23 personalities, kidnaps three teenagers as the 24th personality is going to emerge. Although James McAvoy was applauded for his performance in this role, Split has been in the spotlight of critics for portraying people with DID as creepy and violent. It amplified this idea, already spread by Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Hitchcock’s Psycho. This stereotyped idea would lead people to think that a person with multiple personalities is automatically dangerous, generating discrimination and stigmatisation towards these people.
A direct causality? The ‘stereotype threat’ hypothesis.
The psychologist Claude Steele suggested a direct connection between stereotypes and adverse consequences, which he called the “stereotype threat”. In a 2003 study, African American and white students were placed in an exam situation. A first group was told the exam is a test of intelligence, whereas in a second group, it was said that it was only a study evaluating how people solve problems.
In the first instance, African Americans became more anxious and had the pressure to deconstruct the stereotype saying they are less intelligent than other groups. However, while thinking this way, they discouraged themselves and became doubtful of their own capabilities; thus, the first African American group performed poorly compared with the white group. On the other hand, the second group of African American participants, which was told it was not a test of intelligence, performed just as well as the white group.
This study demonstrates how the internalisation of stereotypes can be detrimental to one’s performance and self-esteem. As Blum stated: “the fear of confirming the stereotypes in the eyes of others makes them unable to give their full and productive attention to the task at hand.”
But the cause is not hopeless.
Despite the rigidity of stereotypes, it’s still possible to undermine their effects. Some studies propose methods to reduce the stereotype threat, including changing the stereotype, establishing a positive image of the stereotyped group and changing policies to create stereotype-safe environments.
But everything should begin with the acknowledgement of the stereotype threat. The more people are aware of the effects, the more they would be inclined to avoid stereotypic behaviour.
