Stereotype in My Daily Encounters I Normally

Stereotype

In my daily encounters I normally encounter gendered assumptions that are prejudicial to both male and female gender. In these encounters, gender role stereotypes are manifested. The human race behaves in gender stereotypical ways without taking their time to reflect on such behaviors (University of Toronto, 2010). Our society is programmed in such a way that when a person strays from gendered expectations; s/he has to face the consequences (Kemeck, 2012). People would be very quick to correct or behave in a way that makes it obvious to somebody that he has strayed from what is considered feminine or masculine. Straying is at times met with violence or harassment.

One fine morning when my sister was mowing the front lawn, quite a number of the male gender who lived next to our home stopped to give her some advice on how to properly mow a lawn. In fact I heard one of them telling her to consider putting on more suitable shoes when mowing the lawn. Another one who was seemingly going for a vacation had to stop his car next to where my sister was and impressed upon my sister the need for putting on goggles to protect her eyes from rocks that could be propelled by the blade under the lawn mower. I found their arguments lacking in substance (Mosser, 2011) because for starters there were no rocks in the front yard and that the tennis shoes she had on were just okay. These men were simply advising my sister because she was a female performing masculine duty. They made my grown up sister appear as an infant. Besides, their paternal advice was of no use to her.

Some gender stereotypes portray women as less knowledgeable in regards to typical masculine duties. The rental apartment we lived in was in dire need of maintenance. Because my dad was not around, my mum had to take the measurement of the window of which she communicated to the landlord. The landlord refused to acknowledge these measurements and instead asked if my dad was around assuming that he would be more competent and reliable. When my dad came he took the measurement and called the landlord to communicate these to him. There were no variations in the measurements. After talking to my dad, the landlord was so pleased with the results. My mother was so furious that her competence was not taken seriously and that my dad was assumed more knowledgeable.