What is Stereotyping? Stereotyping is a fixed idea/image a person has of an individual, a group or = thing but which is often in reality, not true. Stereotyping can be harmful. For example if asked to think of a soldier, = a firefighter or a footballer; stereotypically this would be associated as a male.
Forms of Stereotyping Stereotypes are generalised because an individual or group assumes that the stereotype is true for each individual person who falls within these categories • Gender • Sexual Orientation • Culture • Race • Nationality
Where does it come from? People have their own stereotypes about things such as gender, race or religion. These may be influenced by various sources such as the media, culture, family and friends and even education.
How does Stereotyping look? We tend to “categorise” people to make it easier for us to understand. A stereotypical example of this may be associating careers for males in labouring/construction and for females in the caring professions. Although historically that statement has some truth, in our current climate roles are becoming less gender defined.
Roles Stereotyped Here are some of the examples that are usually associated with the opposite gender. Millionaire Midwife Soldier Childcare Worker
In recent years there has been a big push on STEM based careers. Stereotypically these industries have been heavily populated and seen as “male” roles. Although there has been wider progress towards gender equality, women still only make up 14.4% of all people working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) in the UK, despite being about half of the UK workforce. BBC (2020)
“Regardless of the positive trend of more women choosing STEM subjects the number of men choosing STEM subjects is rapidly increasing too … the percentage of women with STEM degrees has dropped from 25% to 24%” There has been a “25% increase in the number of Built By Me (2019) professional women engineers in a sector that grew 8.5% overall. Over the past 5 years, nearly 58,000 women are working as professional engineers, more than double the number there were in 2013”, 7 years ago. Wise Campaign (2018)
“ Don’t judge a book by its cover ” We can form opinions of people when we meet them for the first time based just on appearance alone. However, these are not always true. It might be a case of us stereotyping and judging someone by their outward appearance rather than getting to know the real them. These images will hopefully challenge the gender stereotypes associated with the roles of a plumber and hairdresser.
Interested in STEM? Taking your own path … • https://www.womeninstem.co.uk/# • https://www.stem.org.uk/ • https://www.steampoweredfamily.com/education/what-is-stem/
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