Blog 15

Hermes, Joke. “ON STEREOTYPES, MEDIA AND REDRESSING GENDERED SOCIAL INEQUALITY” Contemporary Readings in Law & Social Justice, 2011, Vol. 2 Issue 2, p181-187. Web. 7 Apr. 2011

This article was about stereotyping and ways to address this problem.  In the article it describes that to address this problem, you need to alter the media and media content.  In order to start correcting the problem, you need to fix one of the sources for stereotyping.  If the media publishes something that is biased or subjective, it could influence the perception of whoever sees it.  If you read or watch something that contains stereotypes, it is easy for you to start to believe them and consider them true.  This article also talks about the fact that stereotypes can actually help make a group stronger.  For example, this article described how stereotypes about gender have actually helped women become stronger.  This article explained that this can actually be an incentive and cause people to work harder in order to prove that this misconception is wrong.

Another important concept from this article is the idea that although you can diminish the affects of a stereotype, it is very easy for them to resurface and start appearing again.  This article gave an example of how an incident with a Surinamese-Dutch footballer in the Netherlands brought up old rumors of how black men are irresponsible and out of control.  The media uses stereotypes as a shortcut and as a way to address a wide range of audiences.  If they report something that is “interesting” or “scandalous” they are more likely to catch the interest of more people.