In the third part of my presentation I would like you to think if the differences between men and women really exist or if these are simply stereotypes. I would like to start with providing you with the definition of stereotype taken from Wikipedia. “A stereotype is a commonly held popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. (…) Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions.”
Source: http://newsblaze.com/pix/2007/1009/pix/parenting.230.jpg
Majority of people asked about the adjectives describing women say: sensitive, weak, friendly, pretty, well-dressed, polite, etc. The stereotypic role of women is to marry and to have children.. While being asked about characteristics of men they usually answer: strong, muscular, tough, fighting to be a leader. The stereotypic role of men is to be the financial provider of the family Men are perceived as persons who hide their emotions, not eager to ask for help. Let us think about the advertisements. For example, producers of products for babies prefer to show happy mothers with their newborns instead of fathers. This suggests that these are women who take care of children and homes. On the other hand, if we think about ads referring to sport activities it is not difficult to observe that men are the heroes engaged in sport activities.
Right now, I would like to request you to have a look at the following movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z6ks8Z0X20&feature=related
source: youtube.com
Could you think of your own definition of the stereotype?
What stereotypes regarding men and women do you know?
Where do you know them from?
Just think about the children who were asked to show which of the dolls is responsible for given activities. Why were they indicating a ‘woman doll” while being asked about a person taking care of children? And why were they indicating a “man doll” while being asked about the person earning money for the family?
How do children create stereotypes in their minds?
Right now, please watch the interview with teenagers and think how they would comment on the picture below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgHBavtavqQ&feature=related
source: youtube.com
Source: http://www.farnazglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/reverse-gender-stereotypes.jpg
Do you think that stereotypes can be harming for any of the genders or maybe they can bring benefits?
Dear Colleagues, I just hope that it is lack of time that made you not to answer the questions above:) But the weekend is approaching, so I hope there will be more comments posted. Think about stereotypes, maybe you know some jokes related to stereotypes regarding men and women? You are free to share them with others. Of course, please forget about the offensive ones.
ReplyDeleteMen were the ones to go to war. Men can run faster. Not so far in past women didn't have a right to vote. Men were superior. This changes and it's great. Nonetheless there are stereotypes basing on all that. It takes generations to change that.
ReplyDeleteCould you please provide us with some examples of the stereotypes? Everybody knows stereotypes exist but could you please think on exact examples?
ReplyDeleteStereotypes themselves are neither good or bad, they come from the past expriences. What's wrong is judging people only by stereotypes because everyone is different and stereotypes should only be used if we don't know someone.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I hear about that this or that is not proper to man or woman, that this is not the place for men/woman or something like that. However, it's rare - what makes me happy. This phenomenon still exists in our culture and it seems to me that it will take a little more time to disappear it completely. Women fight for their rights and probably no one is no longer surprised when we see a woman behind bus wheel.
ReplyDeleteMen an women are different and thats a good thing. There are a lot of things that men do better and it works both ways. I don't care about others opinion and stereotypes because there are always exceptions. Like for example "womens are bad drivers" Because funny vids on the internet many people have bad feelings if it comes to woman parking her care next to ours. Try to stop it, maybe she is does it much better than you do.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest problem is that we’ve absorbed a lot of stereotypes from cartoons, stories and movies or books since our childhood. Women are usually presented there as delicate, pretty, pleasant creatures.
ReplyDeleteThey are princesses, queens, good mothers but also stepmothers. Red Riding Hood is a small naïve girl.
And men are kings, knights, lumberjack strong and practical boys. Maybe here is a problem? And what about our parents saying: ’Kate is delicate, be good to her’ ’ it’s okey but now you don’t speak to her normally but take the first step not to treat a girl equally to you.
Human brain needs stereotyping. It is a short-cut that enables us to confer order on our complex society. The problem is that stereotyping leads to prejudice and discrimination. As a result we build up perceptions about different skin colours, style of dress, gender and so on.
ReplyDeleteSometimes stereotypes are harmless - blacks are really good at basketball :)
My definition of stereotype is stupidness. It's relying on common believes. Some stereotypes are true, the key here is thinking.
ReplyDeleteI attended a lot of international exchanges and it open my mind. The same is with gender stereotypes, if you meet a lot of people you stop to judge the so quickly.
Yes Adrian, I agree with you. First you need to meet people, then you can judge them. As it was said by Michal, I also think that stereotypes very often have really negative results such as prejudices or discrimination.
ReplyDeletestereotypes in my opinion can be harming because why we should think that women can't be a good drivers or a mechanical engineers. It's also can be injustice relate to men. The only thing we can do to avoid this stereotype thinking is to know well exact person and don't judge people only because of their gender. I agree with Michał it leads to discrimination and this arouse hatred and intolerance.
ReplyDeleteStereotypes does not have any meaning by itself. It starts to have meaning when people start to define cultures. In this way, people eventually trained themselves to recognized the essence of many different cultures. It could be one of the benefit of stereotyping.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, stereotype is used wrongly all the time. We tend to neglect or being ego-centric when stereotyping people that we barely know regardless of their genders.
I think that stereotype it is some kind of opinion the bigger part of populations.The stereotype reagrad on women and men is the simmilar as in this presentations the women is weak the man in strong ,the women should born the chldren and stay at home the man should take care of his family.I think that this kind of stereotype are from past time in the present time this stereotype are changing where women become such strong in work like men and also do carrer....
ReplyDeleteChildren choose woman doll as person given activities becasue women associate with warm ...