Stereotypes do exist, but we have to walk through them.
Women make the sandwiches
Is the woman really the one who makes the sandwiches while the man works and comes home to a clean house ready to eat? This may have been what some people viewed as “right” years ago, but this stereotype of women as the maid of the house is very wrong. It gives the world a sexist view that women are incapable of doing anything with their lives other than cooking, cleaning, and raising children. But in today’s world, women can do anything that a man can do. Women have the ability to go to college, have high level jobs, and even run for president of the United States. They may not be the president yet, but society has a much higher view of women than they have had in the past centuries. Making sandwiches can be left to the boys now because women are busy in the world doing much more.
Why do we label? What do we get out of saying something mean about someone else? The answer is nothing. Let others be and be concerned with yourself.
Who is better at math than an Asian?
One very racist stereotype is that Asians are always excellent math students. People assume that if you are Asian all you do is study math in your free time from morning until night. They are known to be more advanced than the average American student. Is this assumption really true? Or could it be an actual genetic reason that Asians may be more gifted in the math field?
From my experience, I thought any Asian I met especially foreign exchange students were going to be good at math. In eighth grade, I had two young men from Korea come to my school as foreign exchange students. Both of the young men and I were in the same math class. This class was the highest level math at our school. On the first day of classes my teacher explained that we were to show all of our work on our papers so that he would know that we actually knew how to do the work rather than simply put it into the calculator. Once we all turned our work in and he looked them over, a sour look came onto his face. “Dan and Scott, why did you not show any of your work? I told you that you must show your work. Give me the calculators you used and redo this”. They had to explain to him they did not have any calculators but did the work in their heads and didn’t need to show work. The teacher looked very confused but in the end he just ignored the situation and let it go. As a student in the class, I was amazed that they were able to find the answers to the challenging problems without writing anything down. But does this mean simply because of their Asian background that they were able to do the math problems? Or is it that schools are ran differently in Asian countries compared to American schools?
I recently learned from a Chinese exchange student that high school in China is very different than that in America. He told me when they go to school the first three hours of the day are spent for strict studying then stay in school until the evening. They also go to school six days a week compared to the American school which consisting of only five short days. They will sit alone and study for a full three hours to prepare for one test which they take at the end of high school. He described how they never took actual tests through out the school year but instead only had the one test at the end which they focused on. This test known as the National Higher Education Entrance Exam is made up of a basic three subjects: Chinese, Math, and a foreign language (often English). The test may also have other subjects depending on what region of China they are taking the test in. This test is similar to the American standardized tests, but is much more important. If one fails to perform, then all of their studying throughout high school was almost pointless. If Americans had this much pressure placed on them to perform then maybe they would actually be motivated to do better in schools. This test may be the reason why Asians seem much smarter at math than others. They study for so many years learning the subject so that they will succeed while young Americans are often focused on things other than schooling. It is not genetic so the stereotype that all Asians must be good at math is false rather it is attributed to the fact that they spend such a great deal of time studying the subject. We can now learn that if you want to be smarter at math or have your children succeed in math, you must study the great amount of time like the Chinese do so that math will become like a second language.
Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up
This picture stood out to me as a very powerful statement. It is an artistic way to reveal that you can not place people into categories. To put this circle of colors into a square box would be impossible proving a point that people also should not be forced to try to fit into something they would not. People today try to fall into categories the world has created such as wealth or beauty but in reality you will never fit perfectly into a label. A circle would never have a perfect fit as people should never seek to be in a category or allow others to stereotype them as they will never fit.
Is this really what Americans think of each other? Are we one nation or are we really divided by how we perceive each other? Our country was built one state at a time to form one nation together, but in today’s age the ideas formed about each state may slowly be tearing our country’s unity apart.
