Scaly Llama The concept of the scaly llama can be seen in real life quite frequently. The scaly llama idea is that people often see others according to their expectations of those people, expectations that are typically born of stereotypes. The concept when written by Hurley (2013) was applied to fictional characters, but it does apply to real life as well. For example, people who work in retail will be well familiar with the reality that people often see them as roles, rather than people. Many interactions between people are characterized by the scaly llama effect -- a server sees a table; the customers see a servant, neither side actually concerning itself with the realities of who those people are. Hurley (2013) argues that the scaly llama is lazy, and this is true both for writers and for people in their daily lives. When the server and the customers fail to recognize each other outside of their prescribed roles, this is a matter of shorthand, of simplifying the world in a way that makes the interaction easy to process.

The scaly llama effect is seen with women frequently. It may even start with one's own mother, who is seen in...

It is not until later in life that one starts to view one's own mother as a more complex and nuanced person, an adult of equal status. People might know a lot about their mother, but the relationship is characterized in a certain way, until adulthood when you suddenly realize that your mother went through all the same things when she was younger that you did, and that you will go through all the same things when you get older that she has. This changes the bond, restructures the relationship and eliminates the scaly llama effect.
In the workplace, the scaly llama effect is seen frequently. Certain people are seen, based on a number of factors, in certain ways. If you fit the archetype of someone who is usually promoted, you will be seen more as having that potential. Women, unfortunately, have to do a lot more to be seen as having promotion potential. There is a view, and I have seen this many times, that women are perfectly happy to perform lower-level roles. This means that regardless of qualifications, they are not given the same opportunities. Women end up in roles lower than they otherwise might as a…