The world consists of stereotypes surrounding minorities, both in race and gender.  Furthermore, individuals falling into minority categories are given a set of predetermined rules that they are expected to follow, and are reprimanded should their behavior go against it.  While these stereotypes are not as overt in the present day, they still exist on an inferential level.

            Have you ever watched a TV show or movie, or even the news, and been surprised when an individual is not what you would have imagined? The media has a tendency to depict Whites as victimized, while Blacks, Latinos, etc. are shown as the aggressors.  When a storyline, fictional or real, steers away from this depiction, we as an audience some form of reaction, whether evident or subliminal, because it falls outside of the norm.  An idea of minority races being aggressors has existed for decades on end, and is now an ideology (a meaning that helps simplify the world and leads to individual comprehension and judgment) that is hard to abolish.

            The extreme side of this view is when this stereotyping translates into enforcing a way of life for a minority group.  For example, women in many countries across the globe are forced to act in a certain manner, often in a way that depicts them as less than men.  In Borderlands by Gloria Anzadula, she discusses how in her culture, “the Church insists that women are subservient to men” and that there existed essentially only three paths of life that they are able to chose: 1) a nun 2) a prostitute, or 3) a mother.  Only few got to choose an extremely rare fourth option, which included an education.  These ways of life were set out for them, while men had many more options.  Anzadula further explains how these expectations also existed in terms of sexuality, in relations to women.  Women who identified as lesbian were often outcast from their society, a fear that Anzadula had for herself.  As a result, women growing up in these types of countries are guided through life without much personal choice of their future.

            Although these stereotypes primarily exist across races, they can exist within a race as well (i.e. black on black racism or “implicit bias”).  This phenomenon stems back to racism as a whole; the negative stereotypes placed upon minorities may often affect how they began to see each other.  However, this type of bias is more inferential than overt. 

            While racism will always exist, it is important that we as a society acknowledge the stereotypes that pervade us, in order to abstain from placing negative expectations upon minority groups.