Stereotypes: the case of Morocco,
1.What
is a stereotype?
minds” he added .So, what are the common wide-spread stereotypes in Morocco? And why we
label and put stereotypes on others? Are stereotypes good or bad?
2.Examples of stereotypes in our society (Morocco)
Stereotypes
are a big problem in our modern society. It puts labels about how a person
should act or live according to their sex ,race ,personality ,and other facts
.In morocco ,for example, racial groups are linked to stereotypes such as being
good at math and physics. People of Errachidia and its surroundings is a case
in point. But are all people of Errachidia good at math? It’s a generalization
because we can find people there bad at these subjects. A person can make a
generalization about an ethnic group that hasn’t been integrated in society. It
is largely said in Morocco that people who come from Sahara are good, gentle,
and hospitable .whereas, we can find good people as well as bad ones
.Similarly, we hear broadly that saharian people are attracted to fat woman
than to slim one when coupling .This is an overgeneralization because we may
find men attracted to slim and fit girl in contrast of what is stereotyped. It
is well known that when boys talk to girls whom they believed to be physically
attractive, they communicate in a more positive and friendlier manner than boys
who believed that they were talking to unattractive girls. People of
Rabat are accused of being untrustworthy .It is widely said in Morocco that
Rbati people tend to show the wrong direction when asked for a place. In fact,
I went there many times and I experienced such behaviour but the second time I
asked an elderly and I was shown the good direction .so, we shouldn’t take this
prejudgment as a fixed truth .Besides, all men like sports, listening to news
and women are not as strong as men are common stereotypes not only in our
society but in other societies as well .Moreover, there are stereotypes related
to gender, that is, those which are said in favour of woman and those in favour
of man. Among this, all men are all the same “rjal kolhoum bhal bhal” .in other
words all men are wolves. This is a label that many women adopt because of a
faild experience they had with their ex- man. Youth people, by their turn, have
a wide spread prejudgment, namely, “bnt nass” doesn’t exist anymore. They said
that when they are asked why didn’t you get married yet?
3.Why
do we label and put stereotypes on others?
The
commonsense answer to this question is captured in social learning theory.
Simply put, we learn stereotypes from our parents who are our first and most
influential teachers throughout socialization and upbringing .Sociologists
suggest that stereotypes are the result of conflict, poor parenting and
inadequate mental and emotional development. They are shared because they are
the result of a common environment. Some psychologists say that stereotypes are
usually acquired in early childhood under the influence of parents, teachers,
peers and the media. A number of studies have found that stereotypes are
activated automatically. Patricia Devine, for example, suggested that
stereotypes are automatically activated in the presence of a member of a
stereotyped group .Besides, we stereotype people when we are unable or
unwilling to obtain all of the information we need to make a fair judgment
about people or situations. That is to say, we just fill in the missing pieces
of information as we don’t have a total picture. Labeling is due to
carelessness and bad habits and lack of critical thinking skills. In short,
stereotypes remain part of the “in” crowd whether we agree with them or not. We
are obsessed with labels. We should, however, focus on what have in common like
our common values and beliefs.
4.Are
stereotypes good or bad?
According
to Daniel Katz and Kenneth Braly, stereotyping leads to racial prejudice when
people emotionally react to the name of group. When people judge people and
groups based on our prejudices and stereotypes and treat them differently, we
are discriminating them based on no fact. Therefore, stereotypes lead
automatically to racism. The negatives of stereotypes lie on the fact that
people become aggressive after they have faced prejudice in a given situation.
In addition, prejudgments are bad because they make people have trouble making
good rational decisions. It is said that women have lower mathematical ability.
This stereotype, therefore, affects women’s and men’s evaluations of their
abilities. Simply put, stereotyping is the responsible for depression when
people, for instance, have self-stereotypes about themselves.
In
contrast, stereotypes can be healthy and useful .Lippman argues that
stereotypes are necessary for our orientation to the world. They are the way of
simplifying and economizing .Without them,”our perception of the world would be
like a baby’s one.”He added. In the same way Oakes shows that stereotyping,
therefore,”has been characterized at best to make reality manageable and at
worst, a pathological vehicle for prejudice and ill-treatment .What is more,
stereotypes serve the function of cognitive maps, assisting in organizing and
categorizing the large volume of information that individuals receive and
process in social interaction .Simply, stereotypes build a sense of belonging
and a degree of distinction between inside and outside groups. However, even
good stereotypes do harm. For example, a child belongs to a racial group known
for being highly intelligent .This particular child ,however, suffers from a
learning disability and struggles to keep up with his classmates in school
because his teacher has the stereotype that this child is supposed to excel in
class for his people are highly intelligent.
This is
in brief an overview on stereotypes widely spread all over Morocco.
Stereotypes that could be prolonged to other societies because of
globalization. We have seen also in this article the reason why people labeling
each other in terms of both psychological and socio-cultural sides. In the end
we come up with the idea that even good stereotypes are bad ones thinks to
their negative impact on people stereotyped.
Written
by: JAMAL DAHASSOU
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