PHI103 Informal Logic
Perpetuating Stereotypes

Final Grade 9.22/10

Assignment: Discuss three stereotypes you encounter in your own life and the effect those stereotypes can have on others. This can be a stereotype you realize you have been guilty of holding or someone else's. Explain (a) what the stereotype is and (b) what sort of argument, no matter how flawed, might be used to support it, and (c) identify any mistakes you find in that argument. 

The paper must be three pages in length (excluding title and reference page) and in APA (6th edition) format. You must use at least three resources, one of which must be the course text, and two resources must either be found in the Ashford Online Library or from the provided sources. If you would like to refer to APA samples and tutorials, log into the Ashford Writing Center (located in the Learning Resources tab in the left navigation bar). Click on the “APA & Research Guides” tab and review the resources.

Perpetuating Stereotypes

I am addressing three stereotypes I have encountered in my life, both personally and one I merely witnessed.  I will give a short narrative of the incident, how it affected me, where the belief may have come from and whether this belief is valid or not.  I will show that stereotypes are hurtful and though some may have stemmed from some twisted truth, they are not from a positive beginning.

A woman's breast size not only affects her physical appearance but also her self-esteem and confidence, and my situation was no exception.  With negative images attached to big breasted women, they often feel out of place in social situations. They are often thought of as flirts and this can affect their confidence. The unhappiness and the embarrassment can make them feel worthless from the unwanted, negative attention and teasing from people who look at big breasted women as sex objects or a subject of insensitive talk. Finding clothing to fit properly is a next to impossible task.  These women often feel unattractive and self-conscious.  The psychological load of overdeveloped breasts is sometimes so much to bear that they become loners, aloof and very depressed.

When I was in the sixth grade I was fully developed.  I already wore a C-cup bra.  Obviously, I had no control over this, yet I received jeers about this my entire preteen and teen years.  According to the abuse I received, all girls who develop early are sluts.  They are, after all, always available to the boys to sleep around.  I was treated this way by peers as well as adults.  This made for a very lonely life.  Girls would not be friends with me.  Boys made fun of me at twelve.  When they became older and now interested in girls, I became the object of many unwanted advances.  Of course, I always became the subject of unwarranted rumors.  I became extremely withdrawn.  This caused me to not trust people.  I have finally gotten passed that.  But since it is harder to makes friends the older you get due to life in general, I don’t have many friends.  I had never had the opportunity to learn how to develop healthy relationships.  I still struggle with this to this day, even after my breast reduction in 1995 at 43 years old.

  

After much searching, I can’t really find any hard evidence as to why this happens.  I can only guess that it is due to female breasts being an object of sexual play to many people.  I believe this entire issue to be flawed.  Women are not sluts or easy just because of their breast size.  They may become this way due to how they are treated over a period of time.  But it’s only an indirect result of the breast size that makes them this way.  People can only take so much before they either give in or retreat, as I chose to do. 

My next example comes when as a young child I was raised in an all white neighborhood.  I attended an all white school as well as an all white church.  I rarely saw a person of any color besides white.  I will never forget when I was about 8 or 9 years old having a sales person come to the door.  This must have been an appointment my parents made because they let the gentleman come inside and they all sat at the kitchen table.  I have no memory of why he was there.  But I do remember he was a black man, as we called African Americans then.    I remember the appointment going well, my parents smiling, nothing negative to note.  Then he left.  My mother immediately grabbed the Comet and proceeded to scrub down the kitchen chair the man had been sitting in.  She explained to me that we can’t sit where he had sat and she must scrub it clean.  Otherwise who knows what disease we could catch, or lice and some other bug?  She went on to tell me how all black people carry these things, disease, bugs, “who knows.”  Even then it made no sense to me.  Even then I knew this was a very wrong attitude to have.  I thought her attitude was simply crazy.  

 I can’t even begin to say how preposterous this is.  Yes, maybe a person of any color living in a rundown slum with no hope of decent healthcare will have a higher chance of some truth to what my mother said.  But there is no way this can be true based solely on color.  One can’t help but wonder if these rumors were floating around because of the division of whites and blacks, even in hospital availability, until the 1960s and 1970s.  I would have been 8 in 1970, just after the highest point of the civil rights movement and long before views truly began changing.  While strides were being made in 1947 to improve available health care to blacks, it was met with great resistance.  It wasn’t until the “Supreme Court's 1963 Simkins v. Cone decision, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Medicare and Medicaid legislation of 1965” that the country saw a true shift in attitudes toward the healthcare for blacks.  In 1982 Paul Starr (as cited by Thomas, 2006) stated it simply but clearly when he said, “… blacks began to enjoy an access to modem hospital care that they had never known before."  I think this lack of healthcare is where these negative attitudes came from.  

My final example of insane stereotypes would be how gay people shouldn’t raise children.  My personal experience happened when a lesbian friend of mine and I took my son to the drive-in one night while his father was away on a business trip.  This female was what society would label as “butch.”  At the risk of perpetuating the subject matter of this paper, people would see her and assume she is gay.  In this case, they would be correct.  We were at the drive-in, parked in the front row with a blanket on the ground waiting for it to get dark.  My son, who was about 6, is playing with us on the blanket.  All of a sudden I can hear the woman in front of the car next to us say, “it’s a shame some children have to be raised like that.”  She was looking straight at us and half pointing.  I wasn’t embarrassed.  I could care less if someone thinks I’m gay.  That doesn’t matter in how a child is raised.  I was appalled at her ignorance.  

Admittedly, most studies show that children raised by married, biological-parent homes fair best.  However, when comparing children who are raised in step-parent homes, single parent homes, and other alternative families, all of which there are many, there was little difference.  (Wilson Quarterly, 2012)

In conclusion, some stereotypes might actually stem from truth.  Blacks may have had a higher rate of disease, but it was because decent healthcare was off limits to them.  Commonsense tells us that young girls (or even adult women) are not easy just because they have large breast.  And two gay parents can raise a child to be a productive citizen regardless of religious views.  We must consider first the source of the stereotype.  We must use the steps in evaluating deductive arguments to make an informed opinion as to whether there is any validity in the statement.  If there are valid reasons to support the claim or conclusion then the stereotype must be accepted.  (Mosser, 2011) If it is valid, is it still true today?  Is this something we as society need to address?  Blacks needed better healthcare, people lobbied and now they have better healthcare.  Gays could not adopt children some years ago, studies were made, people lobbied and now in most states they can.  Some stereotypes were born from truth of certain groups or a situation; it still does not make it true of all people of that group.  People need to be treated and addressed individually.

References

Gray, B. B. (2012, July 16). Large breasts can take mental, physical toll on teens. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from http://infoweb.newsbank.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action=doc&p_topdoc=1&p_docnum=1&p_sort=YMD_date:D&p_product=AWNB&p_text_direct-0=document_id=%28%20140159841259D488%20%29&p_docid=140159841259D488&p_theme=aggdocs&p_queryname=140159841259D488&f_openurl=yes&p_nbid=N4CU4COAMTM4NDE1MDMwMy44NzU5NTM6MToxMDpFQlNDTzE3OTcy&&p_multi=SJCB

Mosser, K. (2011). An Introduction to logic. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.  Retrieved November 10, 2013 (chapter 3.1, para 2)

Thomas, K. K. (2006, November 6). The Hill-Burton act and civil rights: Expanding hospital care for black southerners, 1939-1960. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0368d38c-81f8-46ea-98ce-b3471f0e5523%40sessionmgr11&vid=9&hid=109

Wilson Quarterly (2012). The gay parent report card. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/detail?sid=d64034a2-3bc5-474b-adf7-8bb70af0e6f3%40sessionmgr13&vid=3&hid=6&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=crh&AN=87542957