The Dark Side of Gender Stereotypes

[Applause]

who here has been told something along

the lines of

you can’t do this because you’re insert

your gender here

yeah most of us have at one point or

another for me personally it was on my

first day of kindergarten with my

teacher miss lewis

we were all saying our favorite colors

to introduce ourselves and i said my

favorite color

was blue this one girl looks at me and

says

blue why are you even a girl then

because of our gender we’re constantly

having stereotypes pushed on us

and negative comments given to us if we

don’t if we don’t conform to them

i actually did a small survey with

students at web asking them the same

question i asked you a bit ago

and this was the result over

80 percent of people said that they’ve

dealt with gender stereotypes

but that wasn’t the only question i

asked them

i also asked them what’s what

stereotypes they’ve dealt with based on

their gender

and i want you to play a game with me i

want you all to guess whether the

following answer came from a boy or a

girl

something like you can’t play with race

cars or you can’t like green or blue

i was a gr i was a kid at the time so it

made me think that i had to like

princesses and dolls

so put one finger up if you think a boy

wrote this two fingers up if you think a

girl wrote this

you guys are correct a girl did write

this

according to an article by authors

cheryl bender peterson and mary alice

hatch

titled gender stereotypes and children’s

books people are being stereotyped in a

bad way and it starts at a very young

age

numerous studies showed that females

were typically portrayed as

as passive dependent and generally

incapable and that males were portrayed

as active

independent and generally competent

stereotype patterns were consistent

across a variety of reading material

materials including picture books

fiction for older readers

and school books what this shows is that

the messages we get at a young age in

all kinds of media perpetuate negative

stereotypes

piecing together this quote and the

survey you can see how in society

women are forced into the role of

submissive and incapable

and men are forced into the rule of

capable and dependent workers

gender stereotypes the whole make people

feel unable to

to express themselves or express

themselves or do what they like to do

for me personally i feel as though i

can’t be interested in certain

activities or join certain clubs that a

lot of boys are in

gender stereotypes are even evident in

big toy companies

if you look at boy toys and girl toys

you can see a very clear difference

between them

girl toys are typically very pink and

usually kitchens dolls and makeup

boy toys on the other hand are a lot

different

it’s generally very blue and green and

usually

has vehicles and weapons which can bring

us back to what people were told based

on their gender

this goes to show how much stereotypes

have made a staple in modern society

and companies will most likely not

change their way since it makes

millions of dollars for them now you may

be asking yourself

but this is only stereotypes in

childhood how does that affect adults

according to an article by the frontiers

in psychology

gender stereotypes affect performance

and self-worth in adults

especially women doing stem-related

careers

when parents endorse specific gender

stereotypes for example

boys are better in stem girls are better

in languages they’re more likely to

uninvitedly intrude in homework

undermining children’s confidence in

these areas and weakening their

self-concept

sorry these kinds of long-term

influences by parents and teachers may

have a significant influence on them

not only on motivation and achievement

but on their career choice as well

several studies have coined the term

stereotype threat

in these studies participants were

usually confronted with a stereotype

about a target group

in the context of stem stereotypes would

include

men being more successful in math and

science after confrontation with the

stereotype

study participants worked on a task

associated with the stereotype

and performance was compared to another

group working on the same task not

confronted with the stereotype

in nearly all studies with the

stereotype threat females achieved

worse with mathematical tasks and their

interests decreased when they were

confronted with the stereotype that

women are less talented in mathematics

i shouldn’t need to say this but that

isn’t okay

people’s lives shouldn’t be changed in a

negative way because of false

stereotypes

and this means that even in adulthood

gender stereotypes still affect you

they affect people regardless of age

also have you noticed that i’ve only

been talking about

male and female stereotypes when there

are other genders such as non-binary or

gender fluid

this is another issue with gender

stereotypes it’s very

binary because stereotyping and

gendering products is either male or

female

it brings a very big connotation that

these are the only genders there are

one or the other this is obviously not

true but gender stereotypes are erasing

those identities and putting everyone

into a box

now i’m not saying that you now just

have to like blue if you’re a girl or

change your whole personality to

to match another gender because that’s

not fixing the issue of gender

stereotypes

what i’m saying is that we have to move

past gender stereotypes as a whole

and let people be themselves and do what

they like to do so

do you think we should have gender

stereotypes in society

thank you