Asmi was very happy, today was the day her niece was born. As soon as she came out of the hospital, she rushed to the baby store to get something for those pretty little hands to play with. She went in and there she found the saleswoman running her through the options:
Pink bed for Girl baby, Blue pram for a boy baby.
Pink bottle for the girl, Blue cradle for the boy.
Pink bib for the girl, Blue dishes for the boy.
Not just that, when the baby grows older, we have pretty Barbie dolls for the Gini’s and strong GIJOs for the Jony’s.
And that’s when Asmi thought that have we as a group of so-called race “Intelligent and Smart people”, have we stereotyped everything. Have we become so judgmental that once we know, say qualityA about a person, we simply assume that the person possesses qualityB as well? Obviously, we would do that, because we are a group believing in the transitive property, that Mathematics has nicely etched in our brains.
Where, if A=B, and B=C, then that implies that A=C.
But, we very comfortably forget that,
If Something (A) = Something (B)…….. and Something(B) = Something(C), then that doesn’t mean:
A=C, or even so:
Something (A) = Something(C).
Not just that, suppose we meet a person and that person doesn’t fall in the pre-defined categories that we’ve classified into, then we as a society get scared. It’s again because, we have constricted our minds so much that if anything out of the box comes our way, we simply run away. Maybe that’s the reason our society hasn’t accepted the 3rd sex yet, let alone understand them. But that is a story of another day.
Now coming back to the matter @ hand, do we stereotype so as to classify people and we think that would give us a better understanding. Then in that case, we would club the common traits and put all those people into 1 category and define them. Come on, hasn’t Biology taught this. Classify all vertebrae’s into Pisces, Amphibian, Reptilian, Ave and Mammal. And that comes with a note in bold: “If you classify thus, you’ll get a better understanding”.
And if in some parallel universe, a whale and a bat meet, their conversation would be like:
Whale: Dude, you know according to human’s and biology we are supposed to have the same characteristics?
Bat: But how? You swim and I fly. How is that related ?
Anyways come up with some LOGICAL EXPLANATION that fits our system of classification or the STEREOTYPE, because simply sticking to stereotype helps us being the zone of the known. Wouldn’t that constrict us? Wouldn’t classifying people take away the joy of getting to know the individual? Aren’t we by doing this always promoting collectivism than individualism?
Suddenly, Asmi got out of day-dreaming and realized that she has been standing at one place and staring at the Barbie doll for too long. She shopped for rest of the gifts and went to the counter to bill:
- Pink Hammock
- Pink Bib
- Pink bottle
She paid the bill and happily went away to gift those to her newly born niece.
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