When asked to differentiate myself as either Republican and Democrat, I tried to make a decision based on a myriad of constituents. Ethnic background, gender, income, occupation, education, age, religion, geography, and more. Although these variables constituted my personal ideology, it didn’t necessarily correlate to identifying with either party. I saw this being the case for my family as well, with us agreeing with certain republican standards but not meeting the standards of Republicans. I became curious about how this system works with the country as a whole. Through research and countless hours of reading through casual data, I began seeing stereotypes that I myself believed that were completely wrong.

It’s an interesting and meaningful experience to get your apprehension about a topic completely disproven. For this research paper, this was my entire experience. I like playing devil’s advocate and challenging the things I have been socialized to believe. I believe American society is complacent with the idea of the “popular consensus” as if we all can’t form an opinion ourselves. It’s interesting to think how many people voted in the past elections on the basis of ignorant stereotypical beliefs

 

 

 

My research paper was about gender stereotypes in the toy industry and how they effect early childhood development. I took 2 studies and analyzed them in detail to show how they prove my thesis. My thesis was that gender stereotypes used to target a specific gender in the toy industry negatively affect early childhood development.

I found this paper to be the easiest to write. There was a more clear guideline to follow and clear decisions that had to be made. I didnt find it that difficult to come up with 4 pages because the paper kind of writes itself. The hardest thing for me was the conclusion. I couldnt figure out how to summarize all of my research and relate it to my thesis in a small paragraph.                                                                   

Summery / Response

The topic that I chose for the research paper is about how gay stereotypes are viewed in society, and how incorrect they actually are. There is a consensus that gay men act like women and the reverse applies to lesbians. My thesis is how the images presented by the stereotype has a negative impact on how people view homosexuals, even if it isn’t necessarily true. Stereotyping has a tendency of discriminating without actually intending it to be offensive, and this also applies to gay stereotyping. The views that people tend to have in regards to homosexuals have traits of the opposite gender, even though it might apply to some it doesn’t apply to all homosexuals and the stereotype provides a somewhat deceptive view of someone who happens to have a different sexual preference than others.

There wasn’t really a concrete reason for choosing this topic, as I haven’t personally been impacted by the stereotype. However, I had meet some people who are gay, and does act in the way that the stereotype describes. I personally don’t agree with the image that this stereotype presents, as like many things, not everyone is the same and can be categorized under the same umbrella of the stereotype. For me, writing the essay was a way for me to see the validity of the stereotype and how it has made an impact on society in the past and present.

The point my paper tried to explain in my paper is how dangerous stereotypes could be. A simple statement to identify a person’s identity is simply misleading and something we should not rely on. I listed out the negative effects that stereotypes pose and why they matter. Throughout my paper, I’ve tried to explain how stereotypes are similar to stigmas, which is what I named the title of my paper after.  Some of the effects are division, biased attention and decision, and mistreatment. After seeing the effects they have on society, it is clear to say that stereotypes are as dangerous as stigmas.

Completing this paper was a relief for me. When Lisa Blankenship gave us the initial project about a stereotype within a community, I was simply stumped. I had no idea what I would write about, but thankfully she changed it into a more manageable topic and I did it! It wasn’t easy to finish this project, but it was worth the efforts I put into the paper. It helped me learn more of how to integrate my sources into my paper and how to further develop my points.

Summary and Response:

My research paper is about the stereotypes between generations and the generational divide that appears to be growing in today’s climate. My research questions are why is there a divide between current generations and how have stereotypes caused this? I basically explain the different generations and define them by the years they are assigned to. The differences between the young and old are the first examples that use to explain this divide.  I define the term “juvenoia,” which basically means an exaggerated fear of things that influence kids these days. I then follow up by referring to the sensationalism in modern media and its effects on each generation. Using my sources and the data from them, I conclude that in the end, the kids these days are just like the kids back then. Sure technology has changed the way we work in and view the world, but that is just a byproduct of being human in this current climate. To assume and judge a generation while they are still living in society puts risks the creation of stereotypes that stem from juvenoia. For me, the most difficult thing about this paper was reaching four pages. Although I eventually did, it required me to look back on my paper and find places to expand on that I wasn’t initially planning on doing. Interestingly though, I found myself being more interested in my topic the with the more research I did. 

Memes: 

Summary:

The Research-Based Argument paper “How Indo-Guyanese Stereotypes Came to Be” talks about, as the title says, the origins of Indo-Guyanese stereotypes. The paper gives context of the country first and follows by explaining there’s a feud between the two largest races of the country. The paper goes on to explaining that the feud along with oral traditions and the retention of the Indian culture create and sustain Indo-Guyanese stereotypes. The paper uses historical details and supports the claim using both peer-reviewed and outside sources. After giving a little context in the beginning and including the main point of the paper which is the race-conflicts, oral traditions, and retention of culture being the cause of the stereotypes, The rest of the paper develops and supports the claim with the mentioning of politics worsening the race-conflicts and the oral traditions, although they mean no harm, also make the stereotypes pass down from generations. There is also the mentioning of the retention of culture, although it isn’t a bad thing, being one of the causes of generalizations (stereotypes) being made of the Indo-Guyanese.

Response:

This was the hardest paper to write, in my opinion, because after writing so much information and focusing on getting a full argument through for the draft, I had to condense the information and organize the argument which became very tough to do. For my paper, there was so much information and everything had some sort of relation to each other so I didn’t know how to tackle the says/does or to clean up the paper in that way. I also didn’t really want to take out anything that would have contributed to a better understanding or development of the argument. I was unsure of the next steps I should take in fixing this paper because I didn’t know how the viewer/audience would understand it.

 

Memes:

https://goo.gl/images/GZr0IS

https://goo.gl/images/NB2K5Z

 

For this research paper, I have decided to focus on the “model minority stereotype” and how it negatively impacts the lives of Asian Americans. To sum it up in basic terms, the model minority stereotype portrays Asian people as a demographic of people that are naturally smart, hard-working, self-reliant, wealthy, successful, and obedient. In my paper, I dedicated each body paragraph to debunking all of these seemingly positive stereotypes through credible sources and statistical research and to explain to my reader how each of these assumptions can negatively affect the Asian American community as a whole. First, I talked about the economic differences of Asian Americans between real life (poverty, etc) and what is stated in the model minority stereotype. Then, I moved on to talk about the difficulties that Asian people face in the workplace and how the model minority stereotype works against them in getting promotions, recognition for their work, etc. I then went into detail with the problems that the stereotype causes for Asian American women specifically. After that, I talked about how this stereotype negatively affects young Asian American students in school, which then led me to discuss about how this stereotype negatively affects the mental and emotional health of the Asian American community as a whole.

While writing my research paper, I was already initially aware of a lot of the issues regarding the model minority stereotype and had already developed my stance on them long before this assignment. However, by putting down my thoughts into words, I found that it helped me articulate my thoughts on this topic even more by helping me organize and dissect my thoughts into clearly separated body paragraphs. Furthermore, it was interesting and sort of satisfying to be able to find specific sources and research that backed up my thoughts and opinions. This search for sources has also caused me to acquire more knowledge and to educate myself more on the specifics of the model minority stereotype, which I actually found beneficial for myself to know about in the long run.

My paper is on stereotypes against Asian Americans and how it affects them in their work life, school life, and overall well being. Being an Asian or a part of a minority group, I thought that it would be interesting to do some research or find statistics on how much stereotyping actually affects Asians. I found that Asians are a “model” minority group which is a demographic group whose members are perceived to achieve a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average. So it’s a good thing to be perceived that way but I found that it brings a lot of pressure for Asians to always do well academically. Since there is a lot of pressure, Asians have a bigger vulnerability to depressive symptoms.

While writing this paper, I could really relate to all the research information I found because as an Asian, I grew up being a victim of stereotypes just like everyone else who probably have been victims themselves. However, I also grew up in a pretty diverse area so everyone was very sensitive to racism and stereotyping which made everyone stay quiet if they had nothing nice to say about another person. What was really interesting though was that I didn’t realize how bad stereotyping was. This is probably because I never experienced being stereotyped in a serious way. Most of the time it would be a joke and, of course, knowing that it was a joke I would just laugh it off. It was also hard to write about stereotypes in general because I honestly think that some stereotypes hold some truths to it so just because I don’t like the stereotype doesn’t mean that it’s not true, but I guess it could be offending. But overall, writing this paper was a good experience to get a chance to talk about stereotypes against my race instead of talking about stereotypes in general.

stereotype meme