SOCIETY AND STEREOTYPES
In today’s society, people already have a fixed-criteria which determines the right and wrong
of one’s doings. If they abide by the so called “criteria”, they are accepted by the society,
otherwise they are neglected and frowned upon. Generation after generation people are fed
with the wrong beliefs and ideas which completely influences a person’s point of view. The
worst part is that this horror begins with young, innocent and fragile beings, children;
Children, teenagers or any young person for that matter. Corruption of young minds, gender
stereotypes, foolishness of the society, herd mentality and spreading awareness are the
contents which are included.
Walt Disney once said, “Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children”;
Conversely, young people are being corrupted with baseless and fallacious dogmas, and this
wretched society watches those artless minds slowly transform into something unpleasant.
Children learn what they see, good or bad, they follow suit; These meaningless ideologies get
stuck in their heads and ruins both, their lives and the lives of people around them. After a
certain point, it is almost impossible to remove the load of garbage which was dumped by the
society all those years.
The most common type of stereotypes is gender stereotyping. A girl is not supposed to
openly talk with boys or laugh with them as she might give them the “wrong idea”, she
should not be out late and especially no short clothes, she is supposed to be a good wife and
caring mother who cooks at home and takes care of her husband and children, having a career
or job is out of question; She is supposed to sit properly, walk gracefully, talk softly and
behave like “a girl”. On the other hand, a boy should always be bold and gutsy, or “man up!”
they’ll say; He can’t cry openly, due to his fear of getting judged; He has to be responsible,
have a stable job and financially support his family with all his strength; Most importantly, he
is supposed to be the dominant one. These are just some of the examples, the list of gender
stereotypes goes on and on. A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl, regardless of their outer
appearances, body language, attitude, the activities they engage in and so on.
The foolishness of the society has no bounds. As they continue planting these wrong ideals in
the heads of the upcoming generation, they actually think what they do is right and that they
know it all, but obviously they don’t. They think they are building the child with morals and
good values, completely unaware of changing them into toxic people with false belief
systems, just like them, which is sad and quite disturbing as well.
Basically, they have a herd mentality, which means they are like sheep which blindly follows
rest of the flock without knowing which is right or wrong. Since their ancestors followed
those stereotypes, they strongly think that it must be right, without considering the fact that
we live in the 21st century and the times have changed.
As a responsible human who is aware of his or her surroundings, it is the duty of one, to
educate, spread awareness and change the illogical opinions of the society. One should strive
hard until he or she makes some sort of change to bring people out from the delusion they
have been living in. This can slowly be achieved through teaching young people the right
things and breaking them free from the expectations of the society; Parents and teachers play
the most important roles of letting them know that they can be whatever they want to be,
actively pursue their dreams, dress and behave as per their wish as the society does not hold
any sort of power or control over them, while imparting goodness and humanity as well.
In conclusion, one can strongly state that the viewpoint of the society should be changed and
passing on of the senseless stereotypes to the future generations must be stopped.
