Stereotypes based on gender.

Essay by audia628University, Bachelor's March 2006

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All people have certain beliefs and ideas about different aspect of life, behavior, relationships, and expectations. Often, these beliefs come from people surrounding us, who are our family members, friends, neighbors, classmates, community one is living in and other similar sources. Unfortunately, quite often these beliefs become stereotypes, opinionated and wrongful ideas about other people's race, culture, and gender. Historically we are not far away form the times when people had common rigid ideas about the way men and women are expected to behave, what types of jobs they can perform, and who has to obey who in a family. Although in the modern society men and women are given equal opportunities and rights, some people are still stereotyping others based on gender, which is harmful, misleading, and ridiculous.

Historically, women were stereotyped, mistreated, and abused in many cultures. I remember when I was living in the former USSR, I saw a movie about the Muslim state in the USSR, Uzbekistan.

That movie affected me so much that I still keenly remember the movie in which a father promised his daughter's hand to a stranger. The girl was only thirteen, and her future husband was about forty years old. She liked Ali, a fifteen-year-old guy, living in her neighborhood. They played together when they were small children. But when the girl grew up she was required to cover her face and body, so that nobody would see her face or recognize her body. When she learns about her future husband, who already had five wives, she runs away. At the end of the movie her farther finds her and then kills her. Her father says that he is ashamed of her and that she does not deserve to live. In our society today, one of the stereotypes is...