The Invisible Trap

Image Courtesy: Michael Podger, Unsplash.com

A client told me about how "cheap" she felt for fantasizing over a man. The belief that thoughts associated with sex are vulgar and women indulging in such ideas are immoral created a lot of emotional distress for her. Another client didn’t feel "man enough" because he couldn’t satisfy his wife in bed and beget children. His belief that sexual prowess and procreation is the ultimate symbol of masculinity caused immense anguish in him. They were both struggling with their self-image.

From the perspective of psychology, they both were plagued with low self-esteem, engendered by ideas that are disapproved or disliked in our culture. These ideas can be safely presumed to be hardwired into their psyche. Putting a label on someone based on his or her choices, race, color, gender, personality or style helps us understand the world around us. We also internalize this categorization and when we do not act or behave in accordance with it, it impacts our self-image in negative ways.

Take for example, the common belief that women are more committed to family than men are. Research simply does not support this notion. In a study of Harvard Business School graduates, nearly everyone, regardless of gender, placed a higher value on their families than on their work. Other research, too, makes it clear that men and women do not have fundamentally different priorities. Numerous studies show that what does differ is the treatment mothers and fathers receive when they start a family. Women are seen as needing support, whereas men are more likely expected to “man up” and not voice stress and fatigue. The fact is that men’s and women’s desires and challenges about work/family balance are remarkably similar. It is what they experience at home or at work once they become a parent that puts them in very different places.

This tendency to lean in a certain direction, often based on how we were raised is referred to as bias. Biases are often based on stereotypes, rather than actual knowledge of an individual or circumstances. Stereotyping is a natural tendency of the human mind to minimize effort and find mental shortcuts to process information and draw quick conclusions. And therein lies the problem.

The novelist Chimamanda Adichie famous quote defines stereotype as, “A single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. When we stereotype others, we reduce them. We imprison them in our own small view, a dark and tiny place with no light and no room for growth.”

In other words, stereotyping is a false classificatory concept to which strong tones of like or dislike, approval or disapproval is attached. It includes all the experiences acquired in the past that determine our perception about the object at a particular moment. Mahzarin Banaji, a psychology professor, studies stereotypes for a living. She understands that no matter how progressive a person seems to be on the surface bears little or no relation to how bias he or she is on an unconscious level. In other words, a bleeding-heart liberal might harbor just as many biases as a Neo-Nazi skinhead. To test this theory, think of the first word that pops into your head to fill in these blanks:

Blondes are ____, Millennials are too ___, Women are bad ____.

Even if you used a positive adjective to fill in the blanks, the funny thing is you still made a generalized statement for a group of people and negative or positive, stereotyping does more harm than good.

So where did this tendency come from?

John Bargh, PhD, of New York University, thinks that stereotypes emerge from group dynamics. "Humans, like other species, need to feel that they are part of a group, and as villages, clans, and other traditional groupings have broken down, our identities have attached themselves to more ambiguous classifications, such as race and class. We want to feel good about the group we belong to – and one way of doing so is to denigrate all those who aren’t in it. And while we tend to see members of our own group as individuals, we view those in out-groups as an undifferentiated-stereotypes-mass. The categories we use have changed, but it seems that stereotyping itself is bred in the bone."

Take, for example, homosexuals. If you have never met a gay man before, you may assume upon meeting one that he should be friendly all the time, or ready to join you on a shopping trip. Another example is the idea that all women should be motherly. If there is a crying baby in the room, the men expect the women to tend to it. And, while it may also sound nice to assume that women are primary parental care-givers, consider this example: the mom who is career oriented versus the stay-at-home dad who raises the kids while she goes out to work. Does it mean that she is less “nurturing” or the dad should be less "respected"?

Not surprisingly, much of what enters our consciousness comes from the culture around us. Images of women as sex objects, footage of bearded men in skullcaps being violent, tattooed and body pierced men and women being rebels, affects our behavior. By five years of age, says Margo Monteith, PhD, many children have definite and entrenched stereotypes about women, class, color and other social groups. “Children don’t have a choice about accepting or rejecting these conceptions, since they’re acquired well before they have the cognitive ability or experience to form their own belief.” And no matter how progressive the parents, they must compete with all the forces that would promote and perpetuate these stereotypes: women are emotional or not good at math, gays are ridiculous and men are rational or better at math.

In other words, one’s behavior, perception and judgment about others as well as about the self is determined by the pattern of stereotype we acquire from our culture. It would be accurate to say that we first define and then see, not the other way round because we are told about the world before we see it. Also, we are quick to accept information that is consistent with our stereotypes and find it tough to accept information that doesn’t fit it in with our perception. Like a hidden trap, stereotypes are:

1. Fixed mental pictures in our head.

2. Unscientific generalizations.

3. Overgeneralized ideas.

4. Mostly negative in nature.

5. Grow like attitudes and prejudices.

6. Quite rigid and not easily amenable to change.

7. Guidelines of our day-to-day activities, perceptions and behavior at large.

And why is this wrong?

Stereotypes Divide

By assigning beauty, talent or smartness to one group, it suggests that anyone who does not fit within that group is less smart, talented or attractive. This type of mentality can easily fuel jealousy, insecurity, and even depression in those who do not belong in the desirable group. The disproportionate representation of women as fit for nothing but childbearing and homemaking or the unreasonable pressure put on men for becoming the breadwinner still exists in many cultures. This kind of pigeon-holing impacts the working population and also makes most women financially insecure. It's not just the women, but men too experience huge pressure and less successful or ambitious men are vulnerable to anxiety or depression. And worse still, they can’t show any kind of emotion that will make them appear “weak” or feminine because "boys don't cry".

Stereotypes Create Fear

“All Arabs and Muslims are terrorists.” “All Jews are greedy.” “Homosexuals are sinners.”

“When They See Us” is a chilling Netflix original that depicts the real-life case of five black teens framed and wrongly convicted of rape. In 1989, the city riven by racial tension was gunning for justice derailed the lives of five teens. Innocent, hardworking and loving people became victims of fear and hate.

Stereotypes Limit Opportunity

When one group is given special privileges or has opportunities taken away just because a certain belief spreads about them, it limits their social, educational and career opportunities. For example, if a race is thought of as “lazy” or “dishonest”, a potential employer is more likely to pass over someone’s resume just by looking at their name, completely ignoring their qualification.

Stereotypes Ignore Real Problems

The media would like us to believe that some groups of people, or in some cases, certain cultures or races, are more violent than others. The problem with this type of bias is that it ignores real problems both within the racial, cultural or social group and outside of it. A Whatsapp message has been doing the rounds, criticizing millennials for their lifestyle choices contributing to global warming. The problem is not going to go away by blaming one generation. Every person of every generation has a part to play in delaying the impacts of climate change. There is now only “us” and shouldn’t be an “us vs. them” labeling.

Stereotypes Give Us Excuses

“Girls are not good at Math.”

“Kids who focus more on sports in school are less intelligent.”

“All North Indians are loud and aggressive.”

“All South Indians are simple and shy.”

“Women are bad drivers.”

“Men are insensitive.”

If you constantly hear that because of your age, gender, race or social status you must be something you are not, it creates emotional conflict.

The invisible power of stereotypes across gender, race, color, cultures or religion seem to develop so naturally that we rarely believe ourselves to be influenced by them, making us even more susceptible to their effects.

We are all guilty of assigning traits to a group of people rather than seeing the individual for what he or she is. But we could overcome this through careful recognition when we do make generalizations. One remedy that works well is to see yourself in others and treat every person the way you would like to be treated, because regardless of ethnicity, class, gender or age we are driven by the same feelings, desires and concerns.