In a world that values evidence-based information it is quite the wonder that stereotypes are still in existence. Stereotypes are broad generalisations about a group of people, most generalisations of which have surely not been put through the rigour of statistical significance testing, yet they are widely used and assumed.
Most generalisations …have surely not been put through the rigour of statistical significance testing, yet they are widely used and assumed.
What you may have concluded about me, may or may not be true…but the error in the way of that is that you are seeing me as nothing else, except my ‘kind’
Now here’s the thing about single stories, what you may have concluded about me, may or may not be true. If I lose my temper, I may be short tempered, but the error in the way of that is that you are seeing me as nothing else, except my ‘kind’. Confirmation bias will ensure that every time you see my ‘kind’ display a short temper, you will notice it, and continue to solidify your stereotype of my ‘kind’ having a short temper. Now the day you saw me lose my temper, you knew nothing of what had caused me to react that way, nor were you privy to the sequence of events that led to it both in those moments, as well as in the years previous, because we know that our personalities are influenced by our experiences from the day we are born, and luckily never stop evolving. Now this is where it gets complicated, because the collective also has a common history that may have led to the development of common character traits, but that would still not mean that all the people with that common history have developed the same traits. The way we react to events that happen to us is determined by many factors, a major one of which is our perception of them, and a woman for example may have a different experience of the Taliban as her son would, despite them living in close proximity to one another and sharing many common characteristics.
Adichie rightly says that the problem with single stories is that they emphasise our differences rather than our shared humanity, which ironically, may comprise far many more of our own renditions of the stereotypes we so readily attribute to others!
Upcoming Activities hosted at RMHC Learning Centre Qawra
Below are details of the events we will be organising in the coming months at the RMCH Centre in Qawra. PROJECT SMITE: MOVING BEYOND THE SINGLE STORY – COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION THROUGH MEDIA LITERACY &
AMAM publishes review of SMITE launch event
The African Media Association Malta (AMAM) has published a review of the first event organised by SMITE. Titled 'Do Stereotypes have roots somewhere?', the article highlights the key points raised during a broad discussion which
AMAM publishes review of SMITE’s latest event
On 31 May, our third online event discussed 'Ethical Issues in Social Media and Blogging. A review of the event which looked at both the issues, in the context of creating and reinforcing single stories,