Blog Post #2

In the Gomez piece, although based on fear, I believe most of his fears were much more drastic to him due to the stereotype of what it means to be a male. Gomez talks about growing up being afraid of everything. He confronted his fears head on to show that he was strong. I believe this was motivated by the stereotype of being “a man”. Throughout the chapter, he talks about pushing himself to appear like the man he wanted to be. Sometimes, stereotypes are placed on us before we even realize it. For example, since I am the oldest child, my family molded their expectations on me around what they thought older children should be. For example, oldest children should be responsible, smart, driven, organized and a prime example for any other children to follow. Because of those expectations, I fought to become that stereotype.

 Stereotypes are not always a bad thing, I always appreciated the expectations my family put on me because it pushed me to become a better, more efficient person. I do believe though that stereotypes can be damaging, and can cause damage to not only you but to those that put those stereotypes on you. In this Ted Talk by Sadie Oritz, she discusses the obstacles that society has placed in front of her simply due to her ethnicity. She discusses having her future predestined for her before she was even able to talk due to her being Hispanic. Growing up, people constantly reminded her that she should be pregnant by 17, a high school dropout and essentially not going anywhere in life.

                Stereotypes can be used to help motivate people, though sometimes it is through discouraging statistics stacked against you and other times it is through encouraging situations. I believe that stereotypes naturally have a negative connotation to them. They are often used in a way to simply pigeonhole a person into what society thinks about them before they even have a chance to speak for themselves, or to even prove them wrong.  As I mentioned earlier, not only is this dangerous for those who are having these stereotypes place on them, but it is also damaging to those who place stereotypes. People who place stereotypes are creating a world that is only systematic and not fluid like it actually is. We may have similar tendencies and traits, but we are still individuals. We are all individuals that deserve a fair trial in the world. We deserve to be judged on our actions and not those actions of others that share traits with me.