By: Arthur Hall
Submitted: 2010-06-01 18:26:19 | Word Count: 501
Stereotypes limit us from reaching full potential. But the good news is that we have the power of deciding what is of value to us and pursue it to make our dreams true. People are made to believe that a certain group in society is limited in one way or the other which in real sense is not true. There are also associated roles which we are told we must do in order to fit in a given group. There have been stereotypes related to gender since time immemorial. Most of them focus their attention on women, they are depicted to be less intelligent than men and generally weak. Women are also associated with domestic work.
Women have been depicted as less intellectual than men; people have been told that women cannot handle challenging tasks. This has made some jobs to be set specific for a certain gender. In education sector for example some courses are believed to be better for boys rather than girls. The reason behind that being, the course is more technical and can only be taken by boys who are believed to be more intellectual. This perception extends even into work places and you find in many companies women are not encouraged to take tasks which are more technical. It has also been assumed that domestic work belongs to women. Media shows domestic work being handled by women and thus society is made to believe these duties belong to them. This has made men to relax, leaving all the domestic work to women alone.
Gender cannot be a limit to achieving our potential. Women in contrast to existing stereotypes are very intelligent and can undertake challenging tasks equally to men or even better. They have ventured in professions which were believed to be dominated by men. Their performance records in these fields are outstanding and they do even challenge their male counter parts. This is a true evident that women can do more than what has been perceived. It is also wrong to believe that household work belongs to women alone. Men should get involved and assist their wives in home jobs. Recently some men have been helping their spouses in domestic duties which a good trait to be followed. Sharing duties and going against these gender stereotypes will help us as a society to attain development goals. A good example why these stereotypes are bias is that Hillary Clinton. She demonstrated to the entire world women can be equally better as men in politics by contesting US presidential candidate of Democratic Party, in the year 2008 presidential election.
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otion of seeing women as less intelligent should be discouraged. They should be give opportunity to explore their potential abilities as well as contribute in innovation and creativity. Although our culture bombards us with message showing how gender makes us different in ability, we should ignore these beliefs. We are all equal and these stereotypes are destructive because they are limiting our potential.
