Combating female stereotypes

Ladies, you are stupid, passive, nagging, emotional wrecks who belong in your homes cleaning and taking care of children.

Does this apply to you?

Colin Johnson, assistant professor in the gender studies department, said this is what our society sees when it looks at women.

“The woman is submissive, accommodating, emotional and  weaker than men,” Johnson said.

Gender stereotypes are simplified and standardized traits or images associated with all members of the female or male population.

Where did these stereotypes come from?

Brenda Weber, also an assistant professor in IU’s gender studies department, and Johnson said these stereotypical images come from our history, power relations and misrepresentations.

“There is usually some feature or quality that gets exaggerated through repetition and thus begins to stand in for all people within a group,” Weber said.

Thanks to the progression of knowledge since the Dark Ages, it is safe to assume that everyone is different.

Just because one woman may cry at the drop of a hat, does not mean that all women do.

Just because it used to be socially required that women stay at home and take care of their families does not mean it is their obligation today.

“I am a terrible housekeeper,” Bloomington resident Marianna Brough said.

Slowly, but surely, society is changing. Many men and women are working together and combatting these stereotypes.

Sophomore Sulaiman Talib’s father cooks his family’s meals most of the time.

“Sometimes women are the breadwinners,” junior Andrea McGuirt said.

Weber’s sense of injustice and systematic oppression lead her to become a professor of gender studies.

She encourages her students to work toward a “gender-full” society where different practices are validated as healthy and acceptable.