Stereotypes
Stereotype is a view, which exists in awareness of society, about some persons, groups, institutions, nations …which is often repeated. People create stereotypes constantly. Stereotypes relate to some group of people and characterize that people. But it’s not a real view of this group because in the most cases stereotype is created on behavior of individual person. What’s more stereotypes (in the most cases) are based on bad features of that individual person and it criticizes whole group. So stereotypes are form of generalization and it’s not positive phenomenon, because each of us is different so we shouldn’t describe him as others only because he is a member of some group.
There are different types of stereotypes. Some of them are funny (stereotypes about blond hair women) but some demean some people (stereotypes created by people who are
We’ve got many stereotypes about different nations and countries. For example in our opinion British people are always talking about the weather (and it’s raining all the time there). The second stereotype connected w British people is that they drink a tea at 5 o’clock. (the truth is that they drink tea but a bit later because they finish work at 5 o’clock).
Another stereotypes are connected with Russians. Very common view of them is that they are drinkers. Russia is a country of mafia. Russians steal cars from western Europe.
Germans in our opinion are very punctual. They drink a lot of bear, they like order and they are well organized.
People believe that French are romantic and it’ used to say that their main dish are frogs and snails.
Japanese in our opinion are workaholics.
After 11th September 2001 each of as look on the Afghan as a potential terrorist. It became stereotype too. I wouldn’t like to travel with such person. We claim that Afghans are fanatic believers who are capable to sacrifice their life for their god. It’s not feature of whole country society but general it’s true.
And Poles. It’s used to say that we are religious (theoretically 97 percent of society are Catholics but reality is different and it’s changing). In opinion of outer nations we are not tolerant. They also believe that we are hospitable and that we drink a lot of alcohol.
People create stereotypes constantly. And it’s not the best form of descriptions of some group or nation because it’s not always a real view. But it’ reality, people won’t stop crating stereotypes (because it’s fashionable etc.). On the other hand in each stereotype is a grain of truth and thanks to stereotypes we can learn e.g. about culture, traditions of other countries. So until the stereotype is funny everything is ok, the worse situation is when stereotype is a background of discrimination.
Helaa