This past week in class we talked a lot about stereotypes. These conversations got me thinking and I found myself doing it a lot. Not at all in a judgemental or mean way, but in a purely speculative way.
For example, I am taking a Stats class at UCLA on Tuesday nights and my teacher is this 20-something year old man. From appearance alone he is very attractive; he is muscular, tan, tall, blonde hair, light eyes, and athletic. He LOVES the Lakers, and seems to be really in tune with all things “sports”. Sounds like a man’s man to me. But when he opened his mouth and started to talk, it totally threw me for a loop. I know saying he “sounded gay” is a stereotype in itself, but his voice totally didn’t fit his appearance. Since then I find myself paying more attention to the way he sounds and not the words coming out of his mouth. He also does the tell-tale “gay hand movements” which also distract me. I’m not writing this to bash my teacher in any way; I could care less if he was gay or not. The point here is really to express how people can get so wrapped up in judging others that it takes over everything else about them.
On a different level, a few Summers ago I went to Sweden with my club soccer team for a tournament. First though we stopped in London for a week and played a few friendly games there against some local teams. After we played the game (and won) both teams took a picture and started to talk a little bit. Of course all of us Americans were so intrigued with their accents we forgot about how we sounded to them. Here in the USA when we meet people with English or British accents it automatically gives them a one-up because they sound so smart and sophisticated. Although while we were talking to these girls, they told us that they look at us the same way where they live and they don’t find anything to be cool or special about how they talk at all.
These example are only two of the MANY that happen all the time. It’s funny to think about all of the different outlooks we have on people when they could have the same reaction to us. Just makes all of this stereotyping seem a little silly.
