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