Personal Reflection
Stereotypes in our society
Stereotypes
of gender
Although
it’s already 2022, gender stereotypes are still happening in our society. Gender
stereotyping is not only affecting the females but also affects the males.
However, the percentage of female victims occupied larger than male victims
based on the survey. Gender stereotypes are caused for a variety of reasons and
lead to many negative effects. There are many ways to solve and decrease the
rate of gender stereotypes in society.
There are many gender stereotype
cases are happening in society, especially in the workplace. Most companies
hire their employees based on their gender. For example, if a man went to an
interview for a nurse occupation, there is a high possibility to get rejected
because they think that the jobs of a nurse are more suitable for a woman.
Besides, it is hard for a woman to get a firefighter occupation. This is
because people think that women are not qualified to become firefighters based
on their strength and body size. Based on the survey, the difficulty of women
to increase their income is higher than men. The gender stereotype environment
is also shown by the income of women being lower than men based on the same
task. Women continually failed to gain promotion because of their gender. The
employers always refused the women with marriage. Based on the survey, women
are more educated and knowledgeable when compared to men, but the gaps in
income between women and men are bigger and bigger over years. This is because
employers think that women with marriage cannot focus on their work. Society
has a mindset about women should do housework at their home, prepare meals for
their family, and other reasons which are unfair to them.
The gendered expectation is one of the
causes of gender stereotypes. For example, males are expected to work while
females are expected to take care of family in the anticipated priorities. In
the perceived qualities, males are expected to be competent, while females are
expected to be warm. Besides, the poverty of women is also the cause of gender
stereotypes. Poverty includes land ownership, inheritance, and economic
resources. When females are compared with males, males’ poverty is better than
females which leads to gender stereotypes. In addition, females do not know how
to protect themselves from gender stereotypes. There are many rights for
females to protect themselves, including the right to receive further
education, to own poverty, to live free from violence, and others.
There are some solutions to overcome
the problems of gender stereotypes. Firstly, the females should accept the
basic education to increase their knowledge. Then, the government should
provide more opportunities for females: provide a job, provide education, and
others. The opportunities provided by the government could help females to
improve their social status. On beyond that, child marriage should be ended. Females
should make their own decision about their marriage and other issues.
Gender stereotypes bring negative
impacts on society, and all parties should work together to solve this problem.
Stereotypes of
Socioeconomic Status
Socioeconomic status means a person’s
or a group’s social status or class. Education, income, and occupation are
frequently used to measure it. Discrepancies in resource access, as well as
concerns about privilege, power, and control, are typically revealed when
socioeconomic status is examined. There are some stereotypes of socioeconomic
status in Malaysia.
The
first stereotype is people always think that poor people do not value
education. ‘Family involvement’ is the most widely used indicator of parental
attitudes toward education, particularly among teachers. This makes sense, as
research regularly shows a link between parental involvement and academic
accomplishment. Nonetheless, oftentimes, our understandings of family
involvement are narrowed, focusing solely on in-school involvement, which
requires parents or guardians to visit their children’s classrooms or schools. While
low-income parents and guardians are less likely to engage in this type of ‘involvement’,
they are more likely than their richer counterparts to engage in home-based
involvement methods such as boosting children to read and minimising their time
spent watching television. In general, there is no evidence that perceptions
about the importance of education in disadvantaged areas differ much from those
in prosperous areas, save from differences in on-site involvement. In fact,
evidence reveals that attitudes toward the value of education among low-income
families are similar to those held by families in those other socioeconomic
groups. To put it another way, despite the fact that they frequently perceive
schools as inequitable and unwelcoming, poor people appreciate education just
as much as rich people.
The
second stereotype is people assume that poor people are lazy. Despite its
inaccuracy, the ‘laziness’ image of people in poverty, as well as the stigma
associated with it, has a particularly negative impact on the
self-confidence of poor communities. The truth is that there is no
evidence that poor individuals are lazier or have poor work ethics than
individuals in other socioeconomic levels. Contrary to popular belief, poor
people put in the same amount of effort as, maybe harder than, persons in
better social levels.
In fact, poor working people
put in an average of 2,500 hours per year, or the average of 1.2 full-time
jobs, to support their families, frequently combining many part-time jobs. Given
that people who work with low-income are concentrated in the jobs that
paid the lowest salary with the fewest opportunities for advancement; and
jobs that require the most intense manual labour and offer nearly no benefits,
like paid sick leave, this is an incredible display of perseverance. If you think that, ‘Oh, then they should look
for jobs that have better paying.’ Then you should think again, in
Malaysia, more than one in every five occupations earns less than the poverty
line. And the outlook is bleaker by the day, as more and
more new jobs offer poverty wages or less. After years of rising unemployment, the ‘recovery’
reintroduced over a million jobs, but a disproportionate number of these were
low-wage occupations, which accounted for 23% of job losses before to 2010, but
over half of newly available jobs by 2011.
Stereotypes of race and ethnicity
Going to the next, one of the
stereotypes that exist from ancient to now is racial and ethnic stereotype. Racial
stereotypes or ethnic stereotypes involve part of a belief system about the
typical characteristics of members of a particular ethnic group, their status,
and social and cultural norms. Ethnic stereotypes or national character have
the same effect on a given nation. Stereotypes can be used for humour in jokes,
and/or may be associated with racism.
Mostly, they are based on simple
generalizations that do not reflect reality. They exacerbate ethnic relations
in multi-ethnic societies. Worse, they hinder the growth of understanding and
empathy among individuals from diverse communities that have had minimal social
interaction over long periods of time. A very good example is, the recent
remarks by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad that "the Chinese
are the rich" and "control all
towns and cities in the country" are examples of this stereotype.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, 70% of Chinese Malaysians in 2016
belonged to the working class. In fact, even in the days of independence, most
Chinese, as noted economist James Puthucheary pointed out, were employees
rather than employers of capital. If some Chinese from working-class
backgrounds have become rich over the years, it is because of the opportunities
and mobility afforded by the socio-economic system of the time, in addition to
their own diligence, perseverance and frugality.
There are other racial stereotypes
that are just as harmful, even if their political impact is less severe than
the one we just examined. Some in different communities in Malaysia believe that
greed is a Chinese trait; Indians are untrustworthy; or Malays are lazy. These
are stereotypes that are easy to break. It is an indisputable fact that many
Chinese show great generosity. It is an unchallenged truth that Indians with so
many social classes are trustworthy; hard-working and hard-working Malays from
all walks of life in Malaysian society are evident to anyone who casually
observes Malaysian society. The stereotype about Malay laziness is perhaps the
only example of a stereotype that some leaders of the target population
themselves identify with. It's a stereotype that two prime ministers Dr
Mahathir has stubbornly upheld for decades - despite overwhelming evidence to
the contrary, despite Syed Hussein Alatas preparedness A wide range of persuasive
arguments is assembled in the acclaimed classic, The Myth of the Lazy Man,
published in 1977. Sadly, Mahathir does not seem to understand that this myth
is rooted in the ideology of colonial capitalism and has been used by
colonialists and communicators of communal politics to discredit indigenous
peoples.
Based on their side effects, we should make a real
commitment to work to overcome our racial stereotypes. This can be achieved by
first acknowledging that we are human and that we do carry racial stereotypes.
Next, we should strive to become more aware of our inner thoughts and feelings
and how they affect our beliefs and behaviours. When we have a stereotype about
a racial group, we should come up with another idea based on factual
information to eliminate the stereotype. We can get this factual information by
getting out of our comfort zone and exposing ourselves to people of different
races.
Stereotypes of age
The stereotype of age usually happens
on the elderly which is people who is about 65 years old and above. It happens
when the society widely talk about a certain group of people. Stereotype in age
is when people tend to have in their mind on usually how people of the age
should behave, what they should do or what they should not do. The society
forgot that every single person would have their own uniqueness. When
stereotype happens on a specific set of people, it affects the way people think
about them or even how they think about themselves.
The most common stereotype in age is
people think that older people should retire at their retirement age. This is
because human being believe that the elderly hardly contributes to workplace as
they are inadequate in energy, the ideas that they give out are not fresh or
too out-dated compare with the young people, and even worst, they think that
the elderly will do a disservice. Moreover, in this 21st century,
the internet and high technology is widely use in workplace. Therefore, people
think that most of the elderly do not know how to use it and it will be a
problem for others is they need to waste time teaching them about it. People
also think that the elderly are more sensitive, they cannot take a joke, so it
will easily cause quarrelling between the employee in a workplace. The society
also thinks that the elderly should not scramble for job with younger people,
they should give way for the young people to go in workplace.
However, nowadays the elderly will
not want to leave the workplace too early. It may be the reason of they have
financial problem or just because they want to find their value in the society.
But no matter what the reason is, the elderly should have their authority to
choose whether they want to retire or continue working. They should be respect
as they are the one who will have the most experience in workplace as they had
work for a longer time than young people. These days, most of the elderly has
high curiosity about internet, so they will find their way to learn about it.
As a result, it should not be a problem for them to integrate into the
workplace. In addition, people should know that jokes that hurts people is not
a joke. People should think wisely before they talk and do not take advantage
of joking to offend anyone. Furthermore, in workplace, everyone should have the
equality to find for job no matter in what age, as long as one has the strength
to handle the work.
We should stop stereotyping of age as
it will bring negative effects for the elderly like physical or mental health
problems. It can cause the older people to feel lonely and they will think that
the people around the world does not like them. We shall give more patient and
tolerate more to the elderly and also each other to make a better world.
Stereotype
against Religion
Stereotype against
religion has always been a
hot topic on many occasions due to education, family, politics, and law,
especially in Malaysia. Malaysia is one of the countries where it has the
diversity of religion, race, and culture, so it is sadly normal to see
Malaysian faced their religion stereotype on their daily basis. I, myself as a
Christian has always been a threat to stereotype because I am a part of the
minority group of many religions in Malaysia. Studying in school where people
said that I am ‘different’ is sad especially when they said that it is hard to
be friends because we have no religion in common. There will also be debate
between people with different religions trying to prove who is the one true God
which can be quite disrespectful because it is in our moral to respect each
other choices and beliefs.
So, what religion
stereotypes faced by Malaysian?
Muslim
One of the top
stereotypes faced by Muslim is they are all terrorists. This is because most
shows by Hollywood portrayed scenes where Muslim love killing people with
different religions to defend the name of Muslim. I saw many of my Muslim
friends faced this stereotype and it is a sad situation because no matter what
a person’s religion is, everyone has a different personality and behavior. I
have also heard from my friend that many countries look down on Malaysia
because majority percentage of religion is Muslim, and our passport is red in
color which represent the symbol Muslim. This stereotype needs to be broken
because many of my Muslim friends are better than being judge. They love
science and math. Some of them wants to be teacher, to join an Olympic sport, a
traveler, and a vlogger. This conclusion, not all Muslim is not terrorists and
not only Muslims are terrorists.
Christian
One of the stereotypes
faced by Christian is that all Christians are influenced by American lifestyle.
Firstly, majority of Americans are atheist not Christians, so there is no
reason for Christians in Malaysia to be influence by Americans. Malaysian
Christians also do not follow the American lifestyle because Christians in
Malaysia have their own culture and races. So, there are Indian, Chinese, and
other races in Christian religion too. So, it is not true that Christian
follows the American lifestyle.
Hinduisms
One of the
stereotypes faced by Hinduism is that they are judged based on caste. This
stereotype is misunderstood because caste is not from religion but cultural
itself. So, religion is not to be blamed in these situations. I have Hindu
friends where they are either treated well or bad based on their caste, so they
keep their caste as secret. Caste should not determine someone’s life. The
success of a person’s can only be determined by good morals, effort, and hard
work. So, the concept caste should be broken especially in Malaysia when we
live in a country full of diversity.
I hope that
stereotype will be broken especially in Malaysia, so that people will have
peace in their own identity without being judged before knowing them first.
Although religion plays some parts of our life, that does not mean it represent
an whole identity and other people around us.
References
Brenoff, A. (2018, September 27). 5 Ageist Stereotypes That Really Need To Go Away Already. HuffPost. Retrieved April 28, 2022, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/5-ageist-stereotypes-that-should-end_n_5b19a66be4b09d7a3d70790b
D.C.M. (2020a, July 7). Ethnic stereotypes --- a bane.
Astro Awani. https://www.astroawani.com/berita-malaysia/ethnic-stereotypes-bane-250211
Dionigi, R. A. (2015).
Stereotypes of Aging: Their Effects on the Health of Older Adults. Journal
of Geriatrics, 2015, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/954027
Ellemers, N.
(2018). Gender stereotypes. Annual review of psychology, 69, 275-298.
Retrieved from
https://www.gleichstellung.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:44da8d64-a5a8-41fd-9fa8-7eb0a2adef75/annurev-psych-2018-Ellemers-gender%20stereotypes.pdf
Overcoming Racial Stereotypes. (n.d.). University
Counseling Center. https://ucc.nd.edu/self-help/multicultural-awareness/overcoming-stereotypes/
Pekular, M.
(2019). FIVE WAYS TO FIGHT GENDER INEQUALITY. THE BORGEN PROJECT. Retrieved
from
https://borgenproject.org/five-ways-to-fight-gender-inequality/
Valerie, S. (2013, October 28). Five stereotypes about poor families and
education. Washingtonpost. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/28/five-stereotypes-about-poor-families-and-education/
Wilson, J. (2019).
5 Top Issues Fueling Gender Inequality in the Workplace. AS YOU SOW. Retrieved
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