Stereotyping - the effect of listening to a single story

When I heard this TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I was impressed by the way she explained the phenomena of stereotyping in very simple terms by giving relevant examples from her own life. I wanted to write about stereotyping for a long time and this talk gave me an opportunity to discuss this issue. I remembered many instances from my own life where I knew only a single story about certain people, religions, or cultures and I formed my opinions about them even before completely understanding those people or places. I am sure this happens to many people. We read or hear about popular beliefs, social customs, myths, and stories. All these things create a certain image about many things in our mind and then we start giving some labels to those things. We stereotype them, knowingly or unknowingly we judge them or express our opinions about them based on that stereotype which was created in our mind based on some incomplete and inaccurate information. I still remember when I was surprised to meet an atheist Muslim who used to follow many things from his religion or culture but didn't believe in god. I was surprised to see a female bus driver for first the time in the US because I had never seen any women driving a bus or truck in India, somehow, I was under the impression that women can't drive these big vehicles. There a are few more things that I can include in this list but the post is not about how many stereotypes I used to believe in but why I believed in them and how that belief was formed? All stereotypes may not be wrong but they definitely don't tell the entire truth.

As Chimamanda nicely explains in her talk, these stereotypes or misconceptions were formed because I only knew single stories about those things. I only saw women working at home and rarely saw them stepping outside the house. I saw them doing only certain types of jobs that women were supposed to do. Therefore I never imagined that they could drive a bus or can also become pilots. I was only told stories about fanatic Muslims and their strong religious beliefs, I was informed that they are anti-Hindu. I never thought that there could be an atheist or a progressive Muslim who respects all other religions. These are just a few examples from my own life to illustrate the effect of listening to single stories and believing in them. Since some of the stereotypes which I believed turned out to be completely wrong I started questioning every stereotype I came across, and believe me, I found each of them based on wrong or incomplete information. There might be some element of truth in them but certainly, they don't represent the true picture. That's why we need to question and challenge every stereotype we come across. They create a wrong image of people, communities, or countries in our minds.

I stopped believing in any stereotype long back. I question all of them, may it be about any gender, race, religion, community, or country. This approach changed my outlook towards looking at things drastically. It helped me a lot to overcome my inhibitions and misconceptions. I am always interested in the other side of the story or want to know more before forming any opinion about anything. I always want to do my own research to explore all angles of any topic before forming my opinion about anything that I hear, see, or read. I am also willing to change those opinions as I get to know about new information. According to me, change is the only constant factor in life. When people stereotype anything then they give some permanent label to those things, attribute certain set of characteristics to them, and believe that those things don't change. They start believing that there are some common qualities for that particular community or gender. Stereotyping is wrong, so let's stop doing this, this will definitely help to make our society a better and more inclusive place. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story