stereotypes

My friend’s mother recently passes away. H didn’t take it very well. Did not want to work, talk to anyone. We begged, cajoled, threatened. After about a month, went off to work. Had a breakdown in front of the colleagues. But the whole thing was not looked upon kindly by the people at work. Why? As a man he is supposed to be stronger. He doesn’t fit the stereotype. From childhood, girls are allowed to cry and boys are forced not to cry. After a certain age the boy is told, “You are a big boy now. You shouldn’t cry.” Does it mean men aren’t allowed to express emotions? Everyone believes that he/she belongs to a stereotype and may be he/she should just follow that.

We as a species are all hypocrites. It’s just that our level of awareness about it differs from person to person. Not so long ago I made a harsh comment about men who cry and how unattractive it is. Now when I think about it I realize I was being as dumb as the people at H’s workplace.

Having said that, I am playing devil’s advocate. In today’s cognitive world, stereotypes are just generalizations, for better or worse, the product of everyone’s mind. For most people an essential feature of stereotypes is that they are negative and that is the one reason why they seem so offensive. People want to feel good about themselves and they would like to, more often than not, bolster their confidence by convincing themselves that they are doing much better than their cohorts.

Take gender stereotyping. Comments like “You throw like a girl” meant to insult a guy is looked on as a negative stereotype. It is well established that an average man would have better muscle power than an average woman. Does it mean guys who make comments like this are chauvinists? Not really. It’s a way for them to establish rapport.

Don’t you think we may have equal number of positive and negative generalizations about people? We tend to label those negative as stereotypes whereas the positive ones are labeled as mere generalizations. This is a reason why people seem to get offended when you tell them they belong to a stereotype. Isn’t it better to fit into a mold rather than not fit anywhere at all?

I think it is an innate tendency for the human mind to abstract. It’s easier to group people into different homogeneous segments, than to attempt understanding each one separately. These groups can be anything like "those who go for love marriages" , H1B category, north Indians calling all south Indians “madrasi”.. Yada. Yada. It is just one form of cognition according to me when you are trying to understand someone.. There are as always errors and but it still makes the effort easier for the mind right?

I don’t know if stereotyping is right/wrong, makes sense/doesn’t. I just hope people would have better perception of the concept. What do you think?