stereotypes

This note last modified July 28, 2026

“The average man is more than the average woman!”

Yeah? And so what, the average person doesn't exist. Maybe the average man is more whatever, but any given man and woman aren’t gonna fit with those averages.

People are unique. They’re influenced by, and fit with, their identities and stereotypes somewhat, but it’s dehumanizing to assume something based on someone’s unchosen identity instead of getting to know them. Even positive stereotypes (like “asians are good at math”) ignore someone’s individuality.

Tagging:

we fall into the way the world should be
- When we are stereotyped, we can’t break away from the idea that that’s how we’re supposed to act, so it’s just easier to act that way.
actor audience paradigm
- Many professional entertainers (e.g.Bo Burnham) have talked about how they find difficulty separating their characters from their real personas. Bo is forced to play an loud funny guy on stage, even though he claims that he’s actually reasonably shy and quiet in real life. Thing is, if everyone sees you as something, they start treating you that way. Audiences expect their actors to act in certain ways. (tag: stereotypes) If you play a character all the time, it’s easy for you to start seeing yourself in that character.
abuse
- That said… I’m realizing that even these stereotypes of abuse may not go far enough in really telling people what abuse is. I think my biggest concern is that everything is a spectrum and that for most cases of abuse, the victims don’t know they are being abused because their abuse is lower on the spectrum than the most extreme cases.