Should Gender Stereotypes be challenged?

[Ben Davis]

I'd like to point out that gender stereotypes was not magically imposed by someone.

Well, that's exactly the thing; they are. Some shallow observations have been made and a generalisation has resulted, memegenic enough to propagate and exploitable enough to use as a eugenic construct. Stereotypes change and the current ones are in transition in western, Euro/Americised nations. In the meantime, these unrealistic imagaries are the cause of much grief and that must be called out.

These stereotypes(or rather characteristics) were formed as a result of thousands of years of evolution.

So you think. What about aspects, emergent from chromosomatic differences, which aren't on your lists? Why shouldn't they be included? Would your views of gender change if the stereotypes were different? And in spite of all that, so what? Isn't the immediate impact of these stereotypes the important thing rather than their origin/source?

For example:
...women are often expected to be passive, loving and caring, while men are usually expected to be aggressive, protective and dominant.

You can expect whatever you like! If you're not paying attention to the discrete behaviour of the individual, you're going to run in to trouble.

I guess my point is, these characteristics are not a result of gender stereotyping...

Sometimes they are. Do you know how many people have had their lives made miserable in some way by authorities/peers trying to enforce stereotypes? I'd hate to try and put a number on it! Sometimes people are forced to change their behaviour & personalities in order to fit the enforced views; they literally repress themselves and hide behind publically acceptable masks.

So is it really smart to challenge them?

Yes because they're not only inappropriate in a modern, Euro/Americised context but they're demonstrably harmful.