Quotes about stereotypes
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah
Ifemelu would also come to learn that, for Kimberly, the poor were blameless. Poverty was a gleaming thing; she could not conceive of poor people being vicious or nasty because their poverty had canonized them, and the greatest saints were the foreign poor.
Meg Kennedy Dugan - It's My Life Now: Starting Over After an Abusive Relationship or Domestic Violence
Are boys encouraged to express sadness, fear, or anxiety? In general, our society gives boys permission for one emotion: anger. If a boy is hurt or upset, he may be comforted briefly, but then he is told to stop crying and "be a man." This message usually implies he should hide his feelings. Boys and men are supposed to be solid unemotional rocks. Demonstrations of emotions are seen as "silly." Anger is seen as a sign of strength. Males are considered to be standing up for their rights if they r
Walter Lippman -
It is only when we are in the habit of recognizing our opinions as a partial experience seen through our stereotypes that we become truly tolerant of an opponent.
Habeeb Akande -
white is not always light and black is not always dark.
David Brin - Glory Season
Generalization is a natural human mental process, and many generalizations are true—in average. What often does promote evil behavior is the lazy, nasty habit of believing that generalizations have anything at all to do with individuals.
Sheryl Sandberg - and the Will to Lead
By focusing on her career and taking a calculated approach to amassing power, Heidi violated our stereotypical expectations of women. Yet by behaving in the same manner, Howard lived up to our stereotypical expectations of men. The end result? Liked him, disliked her.
Simon S Tam -
I met a woman who told me she wasn't attracted to Asians. No worries, I said. I'm not attracted to racists.
Edward Stein - Forms of Desire: Sexual Orientation and the Social Constructionist Controversy
There is nothing mixed up about a woman who loves women, who wants to have sex with them, or who identifies as a lesbian. It is society that is mixed up because it punishes people for not conforming to its gender stereotypes.
Dave Holmes -
In my life, I have been told that as a gay man I am a threat to the American family. I have been told that to accept me as an equal is an insult to God. I have been told that I am no better than a pedophile. I have been told that I cannot serve in the military because my presence will undermine unit cohesion. I have had bottles thrown at me when I gathered with others to protest for marriage equality. I have been told that I am sick, that I am damaged, and that I am damage and sickness incarnate
Elyn R. Saks -
There’s a tremendous need to implode the myths of mental illness, to put a face on it, to show people that a diagnosis does not have to lead to a painful and oblique life....We who struggle with these disorders can lead full, happy, productive lives, if we have the right resources.
Glenn Close -
The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us. And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.
Matthew W. Corrigan -
Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character (29-32). Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens p
Alexandra Katehakis - Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence
Sexual distortions carry strong undertones of prejudice—sexism, racism and homophobia—that rob individuals of their individuality. Common stereotypes include “men are all dogs,” “women are less interested in sex,” “gays are promiscuous,” certain races are frigid or hung, and certain sex acts are indulgent, effeminate, or immoral. Other distortions clearly function as tools of organizations or of religious or political figures to shape public opinion through dogma and to control their followers’
Ron DeLegge II - Gents with No Cents
A stereotype is not a stereotype if it's true.
Vasily Grossman - An Armenian Sketchbook
What matters is the need to move from the rigidity of national stereotypes towards something more truly human; what matters is to discover the riches of human hearts and souls; what matters is the human content of poetry and science, the universal charm and beauty of architecture; what matters is the magnanimity of a nation's leaders and historical figures. only by exalting what is truly human, only by fusing the national with what is universally human, can try dignity - and true freedom - be ac
Ahmir Questlove Thompson - Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove
One night, I was out driving with a few friends of mine when the police pulled us over. We were told we fit the description of someone who had committed a robbery or stolen a car, though I don't really know what kind of description that could have been: three black kids in a Hyundai blasting U2's Joshua Tree on their way back from Bible study?
Justine Larbalestier -
I believe it’s incredibly important to write against [racial] stereotypes. If we give in and make sure that all black women characters are asexual, gentle, and kind we wind up with another set of stereotypes.
Toni Morrison - Beloved
Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the
Bill Willingham -
Confession time: I doubt I would ever have picked up one of Marjorie’s books, had I not met her in person. The reason is they’re categorized as Romances, which is where they are shelved in bookstores. Though I have no justification for avoiding it, the romance section is an area in bookstores I seldom wander into. Her novels also have traditional-looking romance book covers, which are occasionally a bit off-putting to us mighty manly men. Then again, who knows? I don’t carry many biases where g
J. Nozipo Maraire -
Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
Serina Hartwell -
If you’re struggling to fit me into a box……. Then build a bigger box!
Kekla Magoon - How It Went Down
People make mistakes. They look at the surface of things and see what they want to.
Quentin R. Bufogle -
Today someone asked me if that old stereotype about hot-headed Italians is true. I answered this way: About 2,000 years ago, there was a guy running around hollering about peace & love ... and we nailed his ass to a cross! (Hope that answers your fuckin' question!)
Casey Curry -
It is my deepest desire to share the worlds of people we don’t often see or read about in media. With my writing I seek to introduce you to the worlds I’ve always known existed around me and within me.
Ed Koch -
Stereotypes lose their power when the world is found to be more complex than the stereotype would suggest. When we learn that individuals do not fit the group stereotype, then it begins to fall apart.
Siouxsie Sioux -
It was trying to break down the stereotypes and it was the kind of thing where, for the first time, women were on a par and not seen as just objects. Though girls were objectified still.
Harold Evans -
Attempting to get at truth means rejecting stereotypes and cliches.
Iain McGilchrist -
In Shakespeare, unique individuals repudiate the stereotypes demanded by the structure of the play: Shylock commands our sympathy, Barnardine refuses to be hanged. Individuals trump the category.
Edgar Ramirez -
Who said that being Latino is to be a stereotype? Characters are stereotypes when making plans or without shades. I do not believe in the picture or model established in the movies.
Henrik Bering -
Regard for the past only extends to its outward forms.
Julie Kagawa - The Lost Prince
Quaint and picturesque, though I didn't voice my opinion out loud. Keirran and Annwyl were faeries, and Kenzie was a girl, so it was okay for them to notice such things. as a card-carrying guy club, I wasn't going to comment on the floral arrangements.
Ben Mitchell -
You could say I’m so manly I don’t even allow manly stereotypes to influence my actions
Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
I'm just tired of people judging me because I fit into a certain mold.
Jay Bell - Kamikaze Boys
People were clueless. Allthey ever went by was appearance and rumor.
David Pietrusza -
TR on using extramarital accusations against Wilson: "It won't work. You can't cast a man as Romeo who looks and acts like an apothecary's clerk.
Adriana Mather - How to Hang a Witch
If a man fears dogs, he may beat one with a stick when he sees it. As is the nature of all creatures, that dog will bite him. And then he may tell everyone that he was right about dogs, that they are evil. But I ask you, who is at fault in this scenario, the man or the dog?
John Howard Griffin - Black Like Me
He was not talking with US, but with his IMAGE of us.
Jane Austen -
I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively.
Richard Wright - Black Boy
The artist and the politician stand at opposite poles. The artist enhances life by his prolonged concentration upon it, while the politician emphasizes the impersonal aspect of life by his attempts to fit men into groups.
Patricia Highsmith - The Price of Salt
Was it love or wasn't it that she felt for Carol? And how absurd it was that she didn't even know. She had heard about girls falling in love, and she knew what kind of people they were and what they looked like. Neither she nor Carol looked like that. Yet the way she felt about Carol passed all the tests for love and fitted all the descriptions.
Colleen Hoover -
Are you bisexual""Labels were invented for people like you who can't grasp a reality outside of a defined gender role. I like what i like.
Michael J. Sullivan - The Rose and the Thorn
I notice you didn’t include a blade with your new attire,” Royce said. “Not even a little jeweled dagger.”“Lords no.” Albert looked appalled. “I don’t fight.”“I thought all nobles learned sword fighting.” Royce looked to Hadrian.“I thought so too.”“Nobles with competent fathers perhaps. I spent my formative years at my aunt’s at Huffington Manor. She held a daily salon, where a dozen noble ladies came to discuss all manner of philosophical topics, like how much they hated their husbands. I’ve ne
Peter Heather - The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
Reality confounds image.
Dorothy L. Sayers - Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.
Erving Goffman - Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
Here I want to stress that perception of losing one’s mind is based on culturally derived and socially ingrained stereotypes as to the significance of symptoms such as hearing voices, losing temporal and spatial orientation, and sensing that one is being followed, and that many of the most spectacular and convincing of these symptoms in some instances psychiatrically signify merely a temporary emotional upset in a stressful situation, however terrifying to the person at the time. Similarly, the
Eddie Huang - Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir
We play into the definitions and stereotypes others impose on us and accept the model-minority myth, thinking it's positive, but it's a trap just like any stereotype. They put a piece of model-minority cheese between the metal jaws of their mousetrap, but we're lactose intolerant anyway! We can't even eat the cheese.
Melissa Kantor - Maybe One Day
I hate gender stereotypes like girls love princesses and boys like guns. . . my point is that tying particular behaviors and interests to particular gender seems to be the major reason guys who like dance get called names.
Stewart Stafford -
I'm Irish yet I don't drink as I refuse to be a stereotype and live down to the expectations of others.
Dorothy West - The Wedding
Because if you don't know someone all that well, you react to their surface qualities, the superficial stereotypes they throw off like sparks... But once you fight through the sparks and get to the person, you find just that, a person, a big jumble of likes, dislikes, fears, and desires.
Liz Kelly -
SummaryThere is a small group of cases, initially treated as rape where there is no evidence of an assault: primarily where a third party makes the report and the victim subsequently denies; or where the victim suspects being assaulted while asleep, unconscious or affected by alcohol/drugs but the medical/forensic examination suggests no sex has taken place. How the police should designate such cases is problematic.- Eight per cent of reported cases in the sample were designated false by the pol
Joss Whedon -
Nowadays I’m really cranky about comics. Because most of them are just really, really poorly written soft-core. And I miss good old storytelling. And you know what else I miss? Super powers. Why is it now that everybody’s like “I can reverse the polarity of your ions!” Like in one big flash everybody’s Doctor Strange. I like the guys that can stick to walls and change into sand and stuff. I don’t understand anything anymore. And all the girls are wearing nothing, and they all look like they have
Joss Whedon -
Whedon: Studios will tell you: A woman cannot headline an action movie. After The Hunger Games they might stop telling you that a little bit. Whatever you think of the movie, it’s done a great service. And after The Avengers, I think it’s changing.Johansson: A lot of the female superhero movies just suck really badly.Whedon: The suck factor is not small.Johansson: They are really not well made, and already you’re fighting against the tide. There are a couple [female-driven action movies] that ha
Chris Matthews - Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked
Each man had come to know the other's caricature as a lie.
James Cameron -
I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically. A strong male character isn't interesting because it has been done and it's so cliched. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn't done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn't been done all that much, finding the balance of femininity and strength.[From a 1986 Fangoria interview]
Scarlett Johansson -
I try to stay fit and eat healthily, but I am not anxious to starve myself and become unnaturally thin. I don’t find that look attractive on women and I don’t want to become part of that trend. It’s unhealthy and it puts too much pressure on women in general who are being fed this image of the ideal, which it is not. I think America has become obsessed with dieting rather than focusing on eating well, exercising and living a healthy life. I also think that being ultra-thin is not sexy at all. Wo
Chuck Klosterman - The Visible Man
Just watch any husband arguing with his wife about something insignificant; listen to what they say and watch how their residual emotions manifest when the fight is over. It’s so formulaic and unsurprising that you wouldn’t dare re-create it in a movie. All the critics would mock it. They’d all say the screenwriter was a hack who didn’t even try. This is why movies have less value than we like to pretend — movies can’t show reality, because honest depictions of reality offend intelligent people.
Sarah Silverman -
Some people say my humor focuses too much on stereotypes. It doesn't. It focuses on facts.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.
Audre Lorde - Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
The breakdown of mummies and daddies was an important part of lesbian relationships in the Bagatelle...For some of us, however, role-playing reflected all the depreciating attitudes toward women which we loathed in straight society. It was the rejection of these roles that had drawn us to 'the life' in the first place. Instinctively, without particular theory or political position or dialectic, we recognized oppression as oppression, no matter where it came from.But those lesbians who had carved
Calum Alexander Logan -
Having the liberty to have freedom of choice is the greatest thing that each and everyone of us has because that makes us who we are. Do not however use this as an excuse to discriminate, segregate and stereotype mass amounts of people on the basis of a small group of individuals who have either the power or the spotlight to do bad things
Byron Hurt -
Like most guys, I had bought into the stereotype that all feminists were white, lesbian, unattractive male bashers who hated all men. But after reading the work of these black feminists, I realized that this was far from the truth. After digging into their work, I came to really respect the intelligence, courage and honesty of these women.Feminists did not hate men. In fact, they loved men. But just as my father had silenced my mother during their arguments to avoid hearing her gripes, men silen
Stephen King -
Do you drink?""Of course,I just said I was a writer.
Marty Rubin -
Whatever we may be or seem to others, to ourselves we are always just ourselves
Simon S. Tam -
The idea of reappropriation isn’t a new one. The process of turning negative words, symbols, or ideas into positive parts of our own identity – was used for social justice movements long before hipsters thought that being ironic was cool. Whether it is repurposing a racial epithet or taking on a stereotype for sociopolitical empowerment, it’s an important process that has been around for thousands of years and continues to change society today.
Shepherd Hoodwin - Journey of Your Soul: A Channel Explores the Michael Teachings
Today, many of us are trying to understand just what male and female energies are, since we are calling old rigid stereotypes into questions. There is a risk of replacing such stereotypes with even more politically correct rigid stereotypes. The destructive aspect of the masculine has been emphasized in recent years, but both the feminine and the masculine have destructive sides. (The evil witch in fairy tales is an example of the destructive feminine.) Love is the ultimate nature of everything;
Vasily Grossman - An Armenian Sketchbook
The true champions of a nation's freedom are those who reject the limitations of stereotypes and affirm the rich diversity of human nature to be found.
Vasily Grossman - An Armenian Sketchbook
What constitutes the character of a nation is the character of many individual human beings; every national character is in essence, simply human nature. All the worlds nations, therefore, have a great deal in common with one another. The foundation of any national character is human nature. The foundation of national character is simply a particular colouring taken on by human nature, a particular crystallisation of it.
Maria Elena - Eternal Youth
I am all things, I am not your words. I am defined by me.
Jamie Le Fay - Beginnings
There is nothing innate, immutable or inevitable about boys or girls doing particularly well or badly in different subjects. Girls in Shanghai outperform western boys in math, the same boys that outshine the girls in the US. The variable factor is the educational system, the society and the parents.
Paul Bowles - The Spider's House
Stenham had always taken it for granted that the dichotomy of belief and behavior was the cornerstone of the Moslem world. It was too deep to be called hypocrisy; it was merely custom. They said one thing and they did something else. They affirmed their adherence to Islam in formulated phrases, but they behaved as though they believed, and actually did believe, something quite different. Still, the unchanging profession of faith was there, and to him it was this eternal contradiction which made
Siobhan Vivian -
I didn't think she was that kind of girl." I scampered up onto the ledge and strained to listen. "I overheard two of my students talking about her in homeroom yesterday. I never would have thought Natalie would do something like that. Then again, she's been acting out big-time. Fraternizing with that Spencer girl." I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning. What would have ever made me think that teachers wouldn't hear about this, too? After all, it was all over the school. Another teacher
Susan Sontag - The Volcano Lover: A Romance
Every culture has its southerners -- people who work as little as they can, preferring to dance, drink, sing brawl, kill their unfaithful spouses; who have livelier gestures, more lustrous eyes, more colorful garments, more fancifully decorated vehicles, a wonderful sense of rhythm, and charm, charm, charm; unambitious, no, lazy, ignorant, superstitious, uninhibited people, never on time, conspicuously poorer (how could it be otherwise, say the northerners); who for all their poverty and squalor
Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
I know, I know, I'm being a girl.
Margaret Atwood -
A lot of people call you a feminist painter.""What indeed," I say. "I hate party lines, I hate ghettos. Anyway. I'm too old to have invented it and you're too young to understand it, so what's the point of discussing it at all?
Germaine Greer - The Female Eunuch
The Poison Maiden has conceived by him, and is plumb ready to enter the divine category of mother, only one last fiend clubs her to death. The final clinch of male romanticism is that each man kills the thing he loves; whether she be Catharine in A Farewell to Arms, or the Grecian Urn, the 'tension that she be perfect' means that she must die, leavinf the hero's status as a great lover unchallenged. The pattern is still commonplace: the hero cannot marry. The sexual exploit must be conquest, not
Molière - The Misanthrope
I become quite melancholy and deeply grieved to see men behave to each other as they do. Everywhere I find nothing but base flattery, injustice , self-interest, deceit and roguery. I cannot bear it any longer; I'm furious; and my intention is to break with all mankind.
Molière - The Misanthrope
There is nothing I detest so much as the contortions of these great time-and-lip servers, these affable dispensers of meaningless embraces, these obliging utterers of empty words, who view every one in civilities
Patricia J. Williams - The Rooster's Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice
From time to time I try to imagine this world of which he spoke--a culture in whose mythology words might be that precious, in which words were conceived as vessels for communications from the heart; a society in which words are holy, and the challenge of life is based upon the quest for gentle words, holy words, gentle truths, holy truths. I try to imagine for myself a world in which the words one gives one's children are the shell into which they shall grow, so one chooses one's words carefull
Roxane Gay - Bad Feminist
We hold all people to unspoken rules about who and how they should be, how they should think, and what the should say. We say we hate stereotypes but take issue when people deviate from those stereotypes.
Margaret Mead -
Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
Dorothy L. Sayers - Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.
Tamora Pierce - In the Hand of the Goddess
Why do boys say someone acts like a girl as if it were an insult?
Peter Ustinov -
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
Karl Pilkington -
I think people would live a bit longer if they didn't know how old they were. Age puts restrictions on things.
Moderata Fonte - The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men
Do you really believe ... that everything historians tell us about men – or about women – is actually true? You ought to consider the fact that these histories have been written by men, who never tell the truth except by accident.
David Sedaris - When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't.
George Carlin -
I bet you anything that 10 times out of 10, Nicky, Vinny and Tony will beat the shit out of Todd, Kyle and Tucker.
M. Scott Peck - In Search Of Stones
The problem of unmet expectations in marriage is primarily a problem of stereotyping. Each and every human being on this planet is a unique person. Since marriage is inevitably a relationship between two unique people, no one marriage is going to be exactly like any other. Yet we tend to wed with explicit visions of what a “good” marriage ought to be like. Then we suffer enormously from trying to force the relationship to fit the stereotype and from the neurotic guilt and anger we experience whe
Douglas Adams - Last Chance to See
If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch and wishing you could rewrite the script. If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all
Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
Anne Brontë - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith – It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to
Bette Davis -
When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.
Brunonia Barry - The Fifth Petal
... once you start demonizing groups of people, when you make them the other, you can justify doing just about anything you want to the, can't you? Look at history if you don't believe me.
Sarah A. Chrisman - and Technology
The people we find truly anathema are the ones who reduce the past to caricature and distortit to fit their own bigoted stereotypes. We’ve gone to events that claimed to be historic fashionshows but turned out to be gaudy polyester parades with no shadow of reality behind them. Aswe heard our ancestors mocked and bigoted stereotypes presented as facts, we felt like we hadgone to an event advertised as an NAACP convention only to discover it was actually a minstrelshow featuring actors in blackfa
Anita B. Sulser PhD - We Are One
Every leader attracts a different type of follower from the left or the right, from the lowest or the highest class. Every leader unwittingly attracts certain stereotypes that fuel their underlying agenda.
Rowland S. Miller - Intimate Relationships
In particular, husbands and wives who do poorly at nonverbal communication tend to be dissatisfied with their marriages. Moreover, when such problems occur, it's usually the husband's fault .In the first ingenious study of this sort, Patricia Noller (1980) found thathusbands in unhappy marriages sent more confusing messages and made more decoding errors than happy husbands did. There were no such differences among the wives, so the poorer communication Noller observed in the distressed marriages
Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem
A woman should be like water, able to flow over and around anything.
Anne Bradstreet - The Works of Anne Bradstreet
Now say, have women worth, or have they none? Or had they some, but with our Queen is’t gone? Nay Masculines, you have thus tax’d us long, But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong. Let such as say our sex is void of reason Know ‘tis a slander now, but once was tre
Cathy Burnham Martin - The Bimbo Has Brains: And Other Freaky Facts
We could choose to celebrate our differences, rather than over-analyze them. This might help us become more realistic about the generalizations to which we subscribe. For example, consider this. If women are the overemotional ones, why do so many bar fights break out between men? Such brawls do not spring from logical, calm places.