Few if any stereotypes are true, simply because you can't apply generalities of a group to all of its individual members.
Sorry, Hyper, this statement is pure bunk.
You absolutely CAN apply generalities to groups of people. That is what the word
means.
For example- human beings are bipeds.
That is a generality... and, guess what... like all well founded generalities, its true.
Now, I have a nephew born without legs... but so what? That does not make the biped "generality" invalid BECAUSE its a
generality.
Use of that word, or of the word 'stereotype', TELLS you that it is a loosely accurate statement that reflects something true about MOST members of that generalization.
That is, the term 'generality' INCLUDES the information that not ALL traits specified are always present. Its not a definition... its a statistical correlation.
Further... YOU , as a human being, can not even live without generalizations; your innate ability to stereotype your experience.
Your mind seeks patterns, groups, classifies, and categorizes.
It is how you make sense of reality.
When you see a guy wearing gangsta clothing, and gangsta colors and flashing gangsta signs.... you damn well had BETTER assume he's a gangsta.
That assumption enables you to react in the way that will benefit you most.
That doesn't mean the guy absolutely IS a gangsta...
The trouble is the poor education that results in folks imagining that stereotypes and generalizations are somehow "true" of everyone;
The failure to recognize and accept that generalizations and stereotypes are simply provisional assumptions and are, by definition, PROVISIONAL.
The trouble is in the "feel good" PC mythology that people 'should not' stereotype, or that it is even possible for people to stop stereotyping.
Far simpler for folks to get down off their high horse and stop taking PERSONALLY statements that are collectivist and statistical in nature.
It like taking offense at the statistic that Male American life expectancy is 75.- only an idiot would think that that meant that they could not die at 50... or that they could not live to 80.
The FACTS behind penis size and ethic type support the stereotypes.
In fact, Asian men trend to the smaller side of average. They also tend to be shorter in overall height, too... The stereotype that asians have traditionally tended to be shorter than westerners is true despite the anomalous height of Yao Ming.
Due to the genetic legacy of steatopygia, African American males with that genetic origin have penis's that appear to be larger when flaccid.
And, in general, African Americans tend to fall on the higher side of average.
That this is what statistical sampling shows to be true does not mean that there are no hung asians or tiny dicked african americans.
People need to quit getting their panties in a twist simply because THEY don't happen to fall on the statistical average.
Its NO BIG DEAL.
Getting angry over stereotypes is nothing but the wish that you could
control what other people think and say about you.
Political correctness is nothing but applying pressure to control the expression of others.
And I have never met anyone who decries "stereotyping" who didn't actively seek to stereotype themselves in the ways that will lead other people to make the assumptions about them that they prefer.
Izod shirts, driving a beemer, hairstyle, piercings or tattoos, Blue suit with red tie, odd ringtone....
Practically everything people do is an attempt to get others to think of them in the way they prefer to be thought of... to be 'grouped' in the category we see ourselves as part of.
Complaining about stereotyping is like saying that the trouble with breathing is the inhaling... exhaling is fine... but oh... the evils of that inhaling...