Gender stereotyping

 One observed aspect of gender socialization is the phenomena of gender stereotyping. Gender stereotyping is to assume negative characteristics and prejudices in a person that you are interacting with, simply because, the person belongs to that identity category. Let us understand this a little more. We meet a person from a rural context in India and are happily surprised, when this person speaks with us in English and that too about a technical subject-say nutrition from green, leafy vegetables. The question is why are we surprised? We are surprised, because we never thought that a person from rural context in India can, (a) speak English and (b) talk authoritatively about the nutritional components from green leafy vegetables? So, further question is, why did we assume such impressions about a person, even before meeting the person?

     The answer is given by psychologists. Psychology says, that human psyche develops a ‘stereotype’, say about what a rural person from India is like. We have formed an impression or an assumption that rural persons are not only illiterate, cannot speak English but also do not have knowledge on nutrition or other subjects. Thus, this stereotyping or assumptions pre-determine our approach and interaction with a rural person, even before we meet him or her. Our looking glass is colored and that is an injustice to that rural person.

     Similarly, we routinely interact with people, without examining our stereotypes about caste, class, religion and race. We assume wrongly, for example, that certain people are unclean, because they belong to certain communities. This is a grave injustice. We assume that certain people are violent, because they belong to certain communities. This again, is grave injustice.

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