(August 22, 2017 at 10:10 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Now, there are exceptions, but overall it's been my experience that way more girls are going to scream and stand on a chair around spiders, and men are more likely to hit walls and doors or to throw furniture when they feel frustrated. And that's one thing I don't like about the modern narrative-- that stereotypes are evil. It's expecting people to CONFORM to stereotypes, or assuming in particular cases that they must have conformed to them, that is evil.
I'm a girl and I don't give a crap about spiders. Having eight legs doesn't make something more dangerous than if it had six.I generally agree with your statement, though. Stereotypes can be used as judgement shortcuts to basically size someone up when you don't know anythings else about them. To that extent, they can be useful. But they become harmful when they start to define a person and make it so they have to live that stereotype every day, even if it doesn't describe them at all. From my experience, when I'm falsely stereotyped it's frustrating and a little demoralizing, so I try to avoid inflicting that upon others as much as possible.
