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Stereotypes In It Is Not Me It's You

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“Don’t try to squeeze into a glass slipper. Instead shatter the glass ceiling.” This quote, by Priyanka Chopra, a successful Hollywood actress, is urging people to become nonconformists. Many people often try so hard to be the stereotypes society places on them, even though that is not who they truly are. However, Chopra wants people to do the opposite by breaking the mold, and be someone who might stand out of the crowd. One might be able to greater express their individuality and uniqueness, without feeling “trapped” within their stereotype. Yet, even though much attention has been brought to this issue, stereotypes still exist. Many people make stereotypes because they do not have all the information need to make fair opinions about someone. …show more content…

This can be seen in the article, “It’s Not Me, It’s You”, by Annie Murphy Paul (The New York Times). This article talks about a phenomenon called “stereotype threat”. Stereotype threat is a situation where people feel pressure to conform to negative stereotypes about their group. This article explores how this mindset can easily affect how someone might think and act. “Members of groups believed to be academically inferior… score much lower on tests when reminded beforehand of their race or gender… the performance of these students suffered because they were worried about confirming negative stereotypes.” If this problem is not addressed, then many people might become more self-conscious about themselves and their abilities. As seen in the quote above, even being reminded of negative stereotypes towards their group, causes people to believe them, and lower their academic performance. If these negative stereotypes are presented to someone constantly over time, they will begin to think that they are those stereotypes. An individual’s personality and character can be changed due to these biases. This has terrible consequences to someone’s everyday life. The lowered self-esteem, in addition with their mindset of, “If I’m always wrong, why should I even try?” might mean that someone doesn’t take a risk or jump on opportunities. Negative stereotypes can result in someone to believe something that is not always necessarily true about them, and damage one’s

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