Stereotyping Week 3

Stereotyping

XXXXX XXXXX

PHI 103 Informal Logic

Instructor: Carol Parker

October 1, 2013

Our society today is broken up into many different groups by race, gender and trait. Our world consists of females and males, blacks and whites, conservatives and liberals, and we all have a particular way of living. Stereotyping is described as taking a description of an individual and applying it to a group as a whole. It is a thought that someone may have about particular types of individuals or a certain way that one may think of doing things. A stereotype can be anything from a woman’s job is take care of all the household chores, black people are better athletics or labeling all French people as being rude.

Stereotyping can happen to any of us and can happen in numerous ways. One very disrespectful and cruel way of stereotyping would be stereotyping a person that we consider to be overweight. Many times we often stereotype others because of beliefs that we have learned from our parents or on our own. Stereotyping someone that is overweight can be a serious hurtful and demeaning thing. As I was growing up I remember my sisters had a friend that was very heavy and I thought of her as being someone who enjoyed eating everything in sight. I also recall every time she came around there was a bad odor. I stereotyped her as being a slob and just lazy, but later I found out that she had a kidney disorder. What I realized was that some people are overweight because of medical conditions or may even be suffering from a birth defect. It made me understand that you should not judge people without knowing all the circumstances about them. Just because someone may be overweight does not mean that they are all couch potato’s and sit around and eat all the time and not exercise. People who are obese most often already feel self conscious about themselves, and f stereotyping leads to teasing or making fun of the person, it will only worsen the matter. It has...