The following is a paper I wrote for my Cultural Anthropology class. If you care for a little light reading.Quote
"'I shouldn't know you again if we did meet,' Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake: 'you're so exactly like other people.'
"'The face is what one goes by, generally,' Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.
"'That's just what I complain of,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'Your face is the same as everybody has - the two eyes, so - ' (marking their places in the air with his thumb) 'nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance - or the mouth on top - that would be some help.'"
(Lewis Carol, Through the Looking-Glass)
People are affected by the cultural context in which they live and may tend to develop some degree of uniformity due to expectations of conformity. But they are still individuals. Cultural stereotyping, though, applies a uniform set of beliefs about a group to its members in such a way that it negates individuality within the group.
Is this stereotyping desirable in any sense? "Is stereotyping always wrong?" (Krook, assignment sheet) Let me point out the context of this question. "You walk down a street in a strange city, and everyone looks different from you (physical characteristics, clothing, eye contact missing, etc). You see a group of teenagers in your driveway and you are concerned about what they might be doing... Perhaps you walk into a restaurant, and everyone else in there is obviously part of a 'biker gang.' What are your expectations from situations like this?" (ibid.) Haviland, while not directly stating it, implies that in contexts like these stereotypes are a good thing. "[Distinctive clothing for different religious/cultural groups] is very useful, because part of the challenge of survival is knowing each other." (Haviland, et al., p. 28) I would contend, however, that the only context in which such stereotypes is good is when there is a true danger from those who are the "others." In other contexts stereotypes serve to create and reinforce the "other" category and may in fact create danger where none existed before or be used as a force to promote oppression of the "others."
Stereotyping has a relationship to the concept of "linguistic relativity," "The theory that one's language determines the nature of one's thought." (Weiten, Wayne, 2007, Thompson Wadsworth,
Psychology: Themes and Variations, 7th ed., p. G-5) The choice of words has an effect on how the listener or reader perceives the subject. "In everyday life, many people clearly recognize that language can tilt thought along certain lines. This possibility is the basis for some of the concerns that have been expressed about sexist language. Women who object to being called 'girls,' 'chicks,' and 'babes' believe that these terms influence the way people think about and interact with women." (ibid., p 330) The use of language to tilt thought is easily seen in Mary Daly's colorful descriptions of transgender women in
Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (1984, Beacon Press) One wonders whether she used a Roget's in her selection of adjectives: artificial, bogus, counterfeit (one of her favorites), fake, false, fraudulent, imitation, make-believe, mock, phony, pretend, pseudo, sham, simulated. It is not possible to read these words and remain unbiased or at least emotionally unaffected.
Even as small a detail as pronouns can produce a tilt in thought. In English we do not have the flexibility that the Iatmul language of Papua New Guinea does with 11 genders. The three we do have can introduce significant issues of stereotyping transgender people. Stereotyping by pronoun became an issue for Rowen Kellogg in writing her novel
By the Winds (unpublished). The main character, Riven "is really a woman, and at age seven she/he decided to become a boy as a way to have absolute revenge." (Kellogg,
Interview with Rowen Kellogg, Mar 2007) Rowen found that her writing changed when she referred to Riven using female pronouns as opposed to male pronouns. "The whole thing about changing the perspective? When I write about girls I kind of jump into romance. And that's not what I wanted to write about. When I write about guys, I can give them that whole rude personality thing. They can be clueless about love, and jump into battle and kill things. Those are the fun people to write about!" (ibid.) When asked whether stereotypes played a part in this she responded, "Probably a lot, because what's around you influences how you think, and if you're a writer how you write and how you translate your ideas into words." (ibid.) With respect to transgender people, even when the words don't elicit thoughts about romance or "that whole rude personality thing," they at least still can invoke Mary Daly's image of the counterfeit. To break away from stereotyping transgender people, changes in language and thereby the thoughts that language expresses are needed. For this a reasonable respect in the use of gender-appropriate language is imperative.
A gross example of transgender stereotyping is the case of Jimmy Kimmel, the talk show host who made a series of jokes about the physical appearance of transgender women on his show which was aired February 21, 2007. The result was a complaint by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to the ABC network. Kimmel subsequently apologized. (Hudson, Mar 9, 2007,
http://www.washblade.com/2007/3-9/view/actionalert/10168.cfm) Even without the risk of public censure, this kind of holding people up to ridicule is wrong. One of the three techniques in the mechanics of marginalization is to "Stigmatize an Identifying Trait." This causes the group to be "marginalized on something the group has no control over," usually appearance. (Kellogg, Jul 2006, Toronto, "Deconstructing the Heterosexual Matrix,"
9th International Conference on Bisexuality)
With respect to transgender people, stereotyping is endemic. One of the critical ones is the assumption that you can always tell a trans-person when you see them. This stereotype is often wrong but is difficult to overcome because of the familiarity bias, the hindsight bias, and the "stealth" phenomenon. Everyone has seen someone who does not pass well, and their example will always come to mind. And on finding out that a person is transgendered, people will find evidence of it in hindsight. The fact that thousands have transitioned, gone "stealth," and disappeared into society cannot, by its nature, be seen.
One of the dangers to individuals who are being stereotyped is that it subverts the process of "identity negotiation," the process of an individual interacting with others in order to create an identity (Kellogg, 2006,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_(social_science)#Identity_in_sociology). Sheldon Stryker and Peter Burke describe this process. "Situations, however, involve relations to others; the extent to which persons can verify their identities depends on the identities of those others, on how the others respond to identity claims, and on whether behaviors that could alter the situation to align perceptions with standards of self-meanings in fact are viable. Thus, identities may or may not be confirmed in situationally based interaction." (Dec 2000, "The Past, Present, and Future of an Identity Theory,"
Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 63, no. 4, p. 289)
The result of the "others" in the negotiation viewing the person through stereotypical lenses is often that, intentionally or unintentionally, the resulting identity is created in conformity with the stereotype. An example of how this can play out has been documented by Sam Winter and Nuttawut Udomsak among the transgendered community of Thailand (Mar 2002, "Male, Female and Transgender : Stereotypes and Self in Thailand,"
The International Journal of ->-bleeped-<-, vol. 6, no. 1,
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtvo06no01_04.htm) Often the result is that, while the transgender person transitioned to escape the cultural stereotypes of an unwanted gender, they fall into a new conformity to the stereotypes of the new gender. A thought-provoking argument about avoiding this stereotype-based identity is raised in a
transsexual.org article. ("Why You Don't Want to Be A Woman Or A Man,"
http://www.transsexual.org/Roles.html)
Is stereotyping always wrong?" In a stable, well functioning society I would say, "Yes." Stereotypes lead to marginalization of the people who are stereotyped and cause distortions in their identity formation. Because of these issues, we need to get past just seeing "the two eyes, so - nose in the middle, mouth under," to see people in their individuality.
