Stereotyping Parte Deux (kind of!)
I ranted a short while ago about how useful stereotyping can be and that its not necessarily a bad thing. Now I'm going to debunk my carefully thought out theory whilst travelling to work on the train listening to Faith No More's greatest hits (see I really do think carefully about this stuff).
Ok, so to start things off let's talk about the EU. What the feth (great swear word. Look it up) you're now thinking, how did we get to this and where's he going with it. Well yesterday I was listening to Radio 2, like us old folk do, and one of the questions of the day was whether a proposed resolution to force employers to have a 40% female board, if brought in earlier, would have meant that the financial crisis could have been avoided.
Cue feminists screaming hurrah, male chauvinists quaking in their manly size ten loafers and finance directors rubbing their hands at the salary cuts for employing women in high paid roles.
Ok now irrespective of whether it is a good, bad or plain stupid idea here's where I make my point. Being male or female is just another stereotype. Being part of a grouping does not make all members of that grouping (cohort) the same when applied to a specific role. So in this case the stereotype that the EU want to make law is a bad thing. Employment at that level (indeed all levels) should always be based on ability or potential ability in the role. Not on whether someone has a penis or vagina, and don't get me started on male rights and the legalising of sexism that this ruling would result in.
So that's an example of using a stereotype to make an assumption about business. How about sport. Apparently cycling is all the rage now following the Olympics but, oh no, a multiple world champion (is the Tour de France classed as the world championships?) is being stripped of all his titles and being told to hand back his winnings because of a doping scandal. Now I don't know all the details and frankly I don't care because the thing that I do find interesting is the outcry from both fans and cycling competitors that the sport is "dirty". So once again an example of a stereotype that is attributed to a cohort (grouping) to define how we, the general public (see, another grouping) view said cohort.
We group human beings by stereotyping them, from the serious looking business woman that we assume must be a ballbreaker to the middle eastern man with a bag on the train (and we see where that goes don't we). Rather than using our six senses (yes six because in Yorkshire we have this extra one called common sense) to collect data analyse and then modify our behaviour based on that data we seem to allow modern media (TV, Radio, Newspapers and Internet) to tell us what to think.
What think you?
Ok, so to start things off let's talk about the EU. What the feth (great swear word. Look it up) you're now thinking, how did we get to this and where's he going with it. Well yesterday I was listening to Radio 2, like us old folk do, and one of the questions of the day was whether a proposed resolution to force employers to have a 40% female board, if brought in earlier, would have meant that the financial crisis could have been avoided.
Cue feminists screaming hurrah, male chauvinists quaking in their manly size ten loafers and finance directors rubbing their hands at the salary cuts for employing women in high paid roles.
Ok now irrespective of whether it is a good, bad or plain stupid idea here's where I make my point. Being male or female is just another stereotype. Being part of a grouping does not make all members of that grouping (cohort) the same when applied to a specific role. So in this case the stereotype that the EU want to make law is a bad thing. Employment at that level (indeed all levels) should always be based on ability or potential ability in the role. Not on whether someone has a penis or vagina, and don't get me started on male rights and the legalising of sexism that this ruling would result in.
So that's an example of using a stereotype to make an assumption about business. How about sport. Apparently cycling is all the rage now following the Olympics but, oh no, a multiple world champion (is the Tour de France classed as the world championships?) is being stripped of all his titles and being told to hand back his winnings because of a doping scandal. Now I don't know all the details and frankly I don't care because the thing that I do find interesting is the outcry from both fans and cycling competitors that the sport is "dirty". So once again an example of a stereotype that is attributed to a cohort (grouping) to define how we, the general public (see, another grouping) view said cohort.
We group human beings by stereotyping them, from the serious looking business woman that we assume must be a ballbreaker to the middle eastern man with a bag on the train (and we see where that goes don't we). Rather than using our six senses (yes six because in Yorkshire we have this extra one called common sense) to collect data analyse and then modify our behaviour based on that data we seem to allow modern media (TV, Radio, Newspapers and Internet) to tell us what to think.
What think you?
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