Some Thoughts About Stereotype
In the story ―The Myth of the Latin Woman‖, Judith Ortiz Coffer discusses how she was treated by various people due to their conception of her as a Latin woman. Her strong theme discusses various stereotypes that Latin women are subjected to such as they are being viewed as uneducated, hot tamale, and labeled as submissive workers.
Judith Ortiz Coffer believes Latin women are stereotyped as sexual firebrand because of their dress. Clothing was always a big culture clash. She states that she learned to dress from her mother, ―as young girls, it was our mother who had g rown up on a tropical island, where the natural environment was a riot of primary colors, where showing your skin was one way to keep cool as well as to look sexy.‖ In America, people think that Latin girls were colorful clothes and show a lot of skin because they are prostitute or easy to get with. The author proves this is untrue after going to her first high school dance with a boy who tried to kiss her but she rejected.
In everyday use, the concept of the stereotype is used in various contexts: usually the word stereotype is used to refer to members of some kind of collective: firemen are courageous, blondes are less intelligent, Africans are poor, and the Latin girls are hot and so on. When a person makes inferences with a new per
son or about some social events, they use their existing knowledge to reduce the uncertainty in the situation. The less one knows about the object, the more one uses stereotypical generalizations.
Americans are pushy and the English are reserved, right? Wrong, says a new study, which reveals there is no truth in this sort of Cultural stereotypes. There was no correlation between perceived cultural characteristics and the actual traits. These stereotypes focus our attention on some certain features, which is not good at understanding one culture comprehensively.When we walk on the street, for instance, just to get to a certain address, we may not be able to tell how many barber shops we passed during our journey. However, if we walk on the same street to find one, our attention is tuned to see the barbershops' signs. Cultural stereotypes work in the same way: they focus our attention on certain features, and amplify them in our observation. In this way, we see what we are taught to see, and at the same time our observations also confirm the stereotypes.
In the article, the author mentions one facet of the myth of the Latin woman in the United States is the menial, the domestic. The myth of the Hispanic menial –the funny maid, mispronouncing words and cooking up a spicy storm in a shiny California kitchen –has been perpetuated by the media in the same way that ―Mammy‖ from Gone with the Wind became America’s idea of the black woman for generations. So when the author took her first public poetry reading at a restaurant in Miami, she was
mistreated as a waitress because she was a Latin girl, and Latin girl are treated as uneducated.
The less we know about the other, the more we hang on stereotypes. If the stereotype is well grounded and justifiable it may help to orient oneself in a certain situation. Stereotypes are only offensive when they are perceived as being negative. For example: How many times have you ever heard a black man stand up and angrily deny that all black men have huge penises? That statement is a stereotype, but I don't hear anyone complaining about it. There are other stereotypes that are accepted and even repeated by the very group being targeted. Chinese are hard workers, Swedish women are beautiful, Italian women are excellent cooks, Black women are strong, Bi-sexual women make better lovers and so on. But if it is unjust and loaded with negative emotions, it will harm the interaction without question, and also often results from, and leads to, prejudice. Some groups in society -- such as blacks, women, Jews, gays and lesbians -- have all experienced the effects of negative stereotyping and lack of positive images. The Americans looked down on the blacks. In the university classroom, the professor said,‖ the Black men’s IQ is clearly lower than the White’s…‖Amon g the 250 person on the spot, Rice, the only black stood up excitedly,‖ This is no scientific basis. The Black does as hard as the White. We can do what the white can.‖ With father’s studious edification, Rice becomes the first black female secretary of state in American, who is full of sense of calling to def
end the color self-esteem. Her success is so inspiring to the people who are striving to eliminate the prejudice. When we break through the prejudice to love our own skin color, gender and so on, we should improve ourselves more hard, and show our ability to the world, to prove those stereotypes are so ridiculous.
Why we stereotype? The following three points are important. First is the field ofview. From the time that we are very young children, human beings are constantly striving to process the world around us. We struggle to put things into some type of order, and to see the world in a way that makes sense to us. Imagine a preschooler playing with a set of blocks. He may put all of the blue blocks in one pile and the red ones in another. He may also sort the blocks by their shape or size. Throughout our lives, from the earliest years on, we classify people by these same sorts of criteria; boys and girls, adults and kids, fat and thin, tall and short. As we go through life, whether consciously or subconsciously, we are struggling to make sense of the people, places and things around us.The question is that most people’s views are limited. We all know that the less variety of input that a person receives early in life, and the less experience they have with any other people group, the more likely they will be to develop a stereotype. Additionally, when a person with limited experience with any other group of people has a negative experience with that gro up first, they are far more likely to apply a stereotype to all people who fall into that group.
sort of subconsciouslyBut why our views are so limited? As far as I am concerned, the education system and we should pay the great responsibility. As for education, there are still some disadvantages in it. The main question is that people are always pursuing the marks, and always pursue the knowledge utilitarian. Every teacher and parent would say," do your basic education and go to the best university".But what will they do after graduate from school? Seldom gives answers to this question. In Chinese high schools, students study very crazily. They study more than twelve every day! They live in the school and never watch TV, read the newspaper or play computer games. Students never really have a hobby. If you ask them for what are their hobbies, 99% of them will say, I like music, sports and reading. But most of them don't know the difference between jazz and blues. On the other side, the content of education is definitely imperfect, we should learn many things by own if we want to understand the world deeply. In the history class, for instance, teacher taught us about the African for its geographic position, climate condition, the poor conditions they face and so on. A picture in the book describes many African children, some are as thin as rails, and some are big-stomached, not because good eating but have no way to eat clean food. They impress me the poverty only. The same as many others, for African, my initial
impression comes from the wild animal and the virgin forest and grassland they live in Animal World. Al
l things there seem linking with the original, barbarous, and mysterious. Later, in my mind, Africa has become a war, riot, dirty and frightening infectious diseases. Then, I know that the mysterious pyramids of Egypt, gold and diamonds in South Africa and exotic tribal culture of Ken Bali…If I don’t read more about African myself, I still stereotype a poor place.
Second one is Media. The media is the biggest stereotype of the world. And we as a nation we feed right into it. In the media it is common that a certain group is attached with a stereotype. The industry is under pressure to attract readers and viewers, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. In the article, through the media, advertisers in their special vocabulary have designa ted ―sizzling‖ and ―smoldering‖ as the adjectives of choice for describing not only the foods but also the women of the Latin America. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation. By using stereotypes, a complex issue involving people with complex motives can be reduced to a simple conflict between "good guys" and "bad guys." This can happe n when the media try to make real events appear more dramatic to appear audience.
Look at some of your movies that are out today. People believe what they see on television. And that is
far away from the truth. In many shows and movies the male is the handsome hero and never makes mistakes, while the woman is the helpless, beautiful blonde who can only flutter her eyelashes, scream, apply make-up and kiss. In movies obese people are never seen without food in their hand or mouth and most of the time are disgusting and will give up anything for food. This is definitely a negative because weight isn't easily controlled for some people; sometimes it is because of their genes. Super models represent a stereotype of beauty in magazines that is super thin, this is negative because to be this type of beauty encourages young girls to become diet and unhealthy. As far as I’ am concerned, they are obsessed with wealth, and lack of pure cultural communication. In order to seize the market, they tried everything to appear audience, including stereotyping, and the final purpose is making money.
Third, culture differences. All societies have cultures, and all societies overlap culture. Culture exists everywhere - in schools, in religious groups, in races, in neighborhoods and states etc. Most people stereotype because they have failed to evaluate a culture within that culture's scope. Misunderstanding is sure to result when one culture evaluates another by a foreign set of ideals. As the differences of natural environment, economic levels and national development history, each nation has its own unique accustomed lifestyle. For example: Chinese and Japanese use chopsticks to dine, Westerners
use forks. Chinese people like to invite guests and give gifts, and the Westerners rarely entertain guests at home; Chinese people like to wear red setting, the color red is regarded as lucky. In the west, the red color is not lucky.
I still remember the Arts Festival between Chinese and foreign students in our university. The French students performance the Chorus, they were good looking, and their beautiful song was full of melody. Many audiences were charmed with it, and confirmed their stereotype that French are nobly. Then another queue I forgot where they came from started to dance. I am not sure whether I could call it dance. They just wiggled their ass without any sense of beauty. So many people thought they were so rude. In fact, they just have the different ways to express the good mood; we should evaluate a culture within that culture's scope, not just another culture or our own Preference. It just like doesn’t need to go about all day comparing apples to oranges. Suppose I have squeezed both the apple and the orange. But instead of judging the orange by the apple, I simply look at the orange and say "this orange squeezes extraordinarily well, as oranges go". I have appreciated the orange in its own scope and not discredited it for its lack of apple-ness.
Except above main aspects, maybe, People stereotype other people because stereotypes exist. Do all black people like fried chicken and watermelon? Of course not. Are all white people horrible dancers?
Of course not. But at one time or another there were enough people in a group with the same behaviors for it to become a defining characteristic of that group as a whole, which then trickled down to the individuals within that group. My point is that negative stereotypes exist for reasons. Only when we take the time to educate ourselves, to learn where these stereotypes

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