Stereotype

if you're overweight you're lazy and stupid...

if you're depressed you're selfish...

if you're a woman and enjoy sex you're a whore...

if you cut you're emo...

if you're into poetry you're a touchy feely flake...

if you work for minimum wage you're stupid...

if you are into the arts you're into drugs...

if you read a lot you're a know-it-all...

if you're pagan you're evil...

if you're monogamous you're close-minded...

if you're ugly you're nice...

if you listen to punk music you're an anarchist...

if you have dreadlocks you don't bathe...

if you have a lot of friends of the opposite sex you're sleeping around...

if you are in sales you're a good liar...

if you're bipolar you're psychotic...

if you're italian you're emotional...

if your family is intact it's a-ok...

if you're catholic you force your beliefs on others...

if you're white you're an oppressor...

all stereotypes that have been directed at me or my close friends. i'm sure they've been "reinforced" by the stereotyper. i don't feel like i fit any of these but that has never changed anyone's mind. in fact, people that apply these labels have never given me a chance to change their mind.

why are yours any more okay than any of these?

Whether you admit it or not, you are grouping people in your head. You're stereotyping them even if it's just your own names to the same faces and personalities as everyone else. Humans seem to naturally judge one another without any sort of external impetus telling them "hey, that person needs your judgment."

In my experience, the people who claim to hate to be judged and dare to lay claim to never judging anyone else is lying. They're evaluating people in their heads, they just don't come out and say it like the lady at Claires telling you to shop in another section because it's for the "goths."

I try to only make generalizations about people that I get to know. Some are nicer than others, some are pricks, whatever. Some of them like certain types of music, lifestyles, various other things that make them differ from me, but it doesn't bother me until their either belligerent about it or pushy about THEIR choice being better than mine. For example : my guy friends tease me about my choice to be a vegetarian and about the fact that I'm a born and raised feminist. HOWEVER when I ask them to stop, they do. That's what makes them my friends. If the same things were said by someone else who wasn't just teasing me, I'm likely to classify them as rude and as someone I don't need in my life.

I like metal music and several other genres but I'm not mean to people very often (only when I'm in a mood). I'm a compassionate person to those I know but other than that I can come off as cold and distant and authoritative. I am not overly drawn to atavistic tendencies to care more for one bother than eight cousins or whatever the total wound up being (a topic that we discussed in my philosophy class). I'm just another person, wearing sign on my person from the cloths I wear to my hair style to the color of my skin, but all of those things are not me.

Very few people will ever see me as myself.

People see me the "maternal sweetheart"

They see me as the "helper to all of life's woes and cares"

Or maybe as "the bitch from hell who annoys the piss out of me"

Or however people see me...those are just the things I've heard.

Moral of the story is : I don't give a damn, isn't that's what's important? To NOT succumb to the stereotype and live it rather than being yourself...

Hah. When I was little, there was a house on the way to school that had "We're republicans! Eat it!" type signs out front. Because my dad is insanely democrat, I thought these people were going to kidnap me/ransom me/brainwash me/eat me as a delicacy.

I can't think of any stereotypes I have that are worth mentioning. They're either knee-jerk reactions that aren't true, or small things I use to evaluate (sounds better than judge, doesn't it?) people when I meet them.

With the second set, I always hope I'm wrong.