stereotype are generalized opinions and ideas, used by people to pre-define someone or something as to their behavior, gender, appearance, religion, culture, social status, etc.
Stereotypes are acquired throughout our life and experiences in society, based mainly on common sense ideas. They can also vary from group to group, depending on culture and customs.
Stereotypes work like a way of labeling people or things, but without any knowledge about the subject or about the person being stereotyped.
For example, when someone claims that teenagers are rebellious and elderly people are conservative, it's an attempt to standardize these two groups, without respecting the individuality, history and personality of each elderly or adolescent.
The problem is that stereotypes ignore the individual aspects of who is being stereotyped, without even knowing it.
In many cases, some stereotypes can also become forms of preconception.
However, there are positive stereotypes also, for example, Brazil being known as the country of football, demonstrates the great quality of the Brazilian national team and players.
Main types of stereotypes and examples
The types of stereotypes below are labels used as a way to classify and generalize a person or thing.
It is important to remember that in each social group or location, stereotypes can vary due to historical and cultural context.
racial and cultural stereotype
The racial and cultural stereotype is one that a person or a social group is prejudged by their race or customs and traditions.
This type of stereotype is based on generalized and unfounded opinions about a particular region, custom of a place or a people.
For example, when in a story, the bad guys are described as black characters, in order to try to classify black people as poor and marginalized.
For example, saying that black people have more physical strength is a kind of stereotype based on limiting beliefs about the biotype of an entire race, without respecting individuality.
This example comes from the very history of slavery, where enslaved blacks performed heavy work in their daily lives or because some black people performed well in sports.
However, this kind of stereotype judges people by their skin color or their culture, labeling an entire group in an aspect that is not real for every type of person.
Another examples that's when they say that Bahians are lazy or that Indians are savages.
See also the meaning of discrimination and xenophobia.
gender stereotype
This type of stereotype is one that associates and judges the behaviors of men and women, based on how they should or act. It may also address some more psychological characteristics associated with gender.
For example, when someone says that women should, the woman should take care of the housework and the children, and not work outside the home. Or when someone says that men don't cry or don't know how to talk about their feelings.
Another examples it is when they believe that women cannot perform some professional activities, or that men should not wear certain colors of clothing, such as pink, because they are considered feminine.
In the psychological characteristicss, it can happen, for example, when in a conversation between men and women, someone says that you cannot talk about certain subjects because the woman is more sensitive and emotionally fragile.
This is a way of categorizing all women within some psychological characteristics, such as emotionally sensitive.
This type of stereotype appears throughout human history, where most societies in the world they saw the woman as fragile and sensitive, and the man as someone emotionally and physically strong and provider.
See the meaning of gender identity and ethnicity.
professional stereotype
The professional stereotype is linked to any type of characteristic in the relationship between people and work.
One example It is very common to stereotype civil servants, claiming that they work little and anyway.
In this case, people define the entire group of civil servants, without respecting the individuality and way of working of each one.
This type of stereotype arises through the behavior of people in the professional environment and the functioning of businesses and services.
Since in many places public processes and services are slow and bureaucratic, people label the entire civil service class as accommodated workers.
Another examples This kind of stereotype also happens when someone labels that every businessperson only thinks about money or that all people who work with IT (information technology) are nerds.
Socioeconomic stereotypes
This kind of stereotype focuses on the financial aspects or the social position of people. This can happen on both sides, for example: label that rich people are futile or indifferent to social issues.
Or even that people who have low positions in companies are acculturated and less intelligent.
This type of stereotype arises from the construction of socioeconomic hierarchies. Thus, the rich are seen as powerful and indifferent to others, and poor people as those who do not have access to education and information.
However, this is the kind of stereotype that labels people because of their social position or financial gain, without even considering their individuality and life context.
See also the meaning of culture and social inequality.
religious stereotype
It is one that focuses on the characteristics and behaviors of certain religions.
For example, when a person believes that any Muslim belongs to the Islamic state or is a terrorist, or that any Jew is rich and very thrifty.
About Muslims, for example, the stereotype may also arise due to the media exploiting the issue of Islamic State terrorist attacks. for example.
However, they forget that within the context of religions there are many people who do not agree and who do not have this type of behavior that is associated with religion.
See also the meaning of religious intolerance.
beauty stereotype
A stereotype of beauty is the prevailing notion of what a society considers beautiful.
Beauty stereotypes change over time. In the past, being overweight was the stereotype of beauty, because it conveyed the idea of health, because the person had good financial capacity and enough money to eat a lot.
Years later, the stereotype of beauty is quite different, with most people thinking that being beautiful is being within the ideal weight, in physical shape.
A stereotype of beauty, for example, is when it is believed that only thin women can be models, or that cellulite and stretch marks are aesthetically ugly, among several other characteristics that are classified as beautiful or ugly.
Also read about beauty pattern.
Origin of the term stereotype
Stereotype originates from the Greek words stereos and types, which form the term solid print. This term emerged in the context of the graphic printing universe of printing and was created by the French graphic firm Firmin Didot, in 1794.
The term stereotype was created to refer to the metallic plates that allowed the mass production of newspapers, magazines and periodicals. These plates were created from molds that allowed the same image to be printed on all prints.
But, in 1922, the American writer Walter Lippmann applied the term for the first time in his book entitled “Public Opinion”.
In context, he describes that we use stereotype to mean and categorize things and people, in a way to facilitate and simplify our view of the world
Difference between stereotype and prejudice
Human beings usually categorize people into different groups, based on their characteristics. This type of categorization is the stereotype. The stereotype is the way we believe the people who are part of a certain group are.
O preconception is distinguished from stereotyping because it is not limited to categorizing or stereotyping a group of people, or an individual. Prejudice involves a discriminatory assessment, which prejudges the other, generating a feeling of hatred and repulsion, without foundation.
Prejudice can also often generate violent and hostile attitudes or discourses against a person, a group, a culture, a belief, among others.
See also the meaning of preconception and racism.