Social Stereotypes

The very first line of Judy Brady’s essay I Want a Wife sparked many thoughts within my mind. When Brady stated, “I belong to that classification of people known as wives”, I connected the stereotypes and ownership she satirically represented throughout the entirety of the piece with the stereotypically based classifications of people in society. 

Society tends to place everyone in some type of classification based on a combination of both visual and personality based stereotypes. In the case of Brady’s essay, the social group she was put into was the “wives” category. Common stereotypes of that group that she discussed in the essay were stereotypes of submission, taking the complete role of “the housemaid”, and taking

sole responsibility of whatever children the wife has. Women should not be expected or forced to take on all these traditional roles! In the essay, Judy Brady showed the unattainable nature of these stereotypes by showing how excessive they are, as well as how ridiculous they all are.

Other common stereotypes are very racially driven, and socio economically driven. Some stereotypes about very poor people include being lazy, having substance abuse issues, not valuing education, and bad parenting. While some people may fit these stereotypes, they are far from the truth for most poor people. Society assumes that people are in their individual situations as a result of their drive and effort. However, society does not seem to take uncontrollable factors such as upbringing and health conditions into account. 

The main issue that I find wrong (out of MANY) with stereotypes, is that they are all based on perception rather than reality. No one knows the actuality of every facet of someone's life, and society should treat everyone as individuals without any preconceived opinions of people. It’s unfair to treat people differently or poorly simply due to what we think their life is. 

No one knows what someone else is going through, so I encourage everyone that reads this to, as Harry Styles says, treat people with kindness!