Rhetoric & Sterotypes - Essay Example

1996). However, it seems that stereotypes have become woven into the human mind because no matter how insignificant, everyone has stereotypes formed about someone. In particular, the stereotypes of politicians, people with tattoos, feminist, and senior citizens are worth discussing. Politicians help run our legislative system. They are elected by the general public to represent their interest in the government on both the local and federal levels. Sometimes we elect representatives that represent our interest, while other times they represent “the highest bidder”.

I have grown up hearing that politicians are corrupt and greasy; the power ends up corrupting their purpose. This can be seen with all the lobbying and special interest groups that now play a role in our representative democracy. When talking about politicians, stereotypes usually reflect a negative outlook with conversations mostly talking about political corruption and shady dealings with corporate owners for tax breaks. Tattoos are a form of body art that have foundations across most of the cultures of the world.

The art of tattooing has been around since ancient times. Some of the common stereotypes held about people who have tattoos are: “being unsuccessful in school, coming from broken homes, having an unhappy childhood, rarely attending church, having poor decision making skills, usually obtaining further body modification while inebriated and being an easy victim of peer pressure” (Martin & Dula 2010). Many people have learned to associate tattoos with “destroying your body.” Due to the conflicting nature of tattoos, a generalized consensus would be hard to draw due not only to the popularity of tattoos, but their glorified nature in Hollywood as well as on television.

The Feminist Movement focuses on the gender inequalities that exist in society and promotes women’s rights in every aspect of life. Radical feminism has lead to feminist having a negative appearance especially when talking about men. “People imagine a stereotypical image of an angry, man-hating, unattractive woman with hairy armpits screaming irrationally about imagined insults” (Gladen, 2008). The biggest component of the stereotype is male bashing and women supremacy. What started as a genuine movement for gender equality developed into a movement in which radical women wanting to become superior to men and have them feel the way women have been treated for ages.

Gerontology is a specific study in psychology which deals with the aging process of the elderly. Across the world, there are many different views about the role of the elderly in society. In the western hemisphere, it is a common practice for the offspring to put their elderly parents in a nursing home once they are unable to care for themselves. In some eastern cultures, it is customary for the elderly to live with the parents throughout their lives. Elderly people are often viewed as inefficient in society due to the lack of mobility and self reliance from biological and psychological aging.

This negative stereotype about being a burden on their families often leads to depression and other psychological illnesses in the elderly which could eventually lead to suicide. There is some truth to all of the stereotypes. Stereotypes are ways for us to self associate/disassociate from people that are similar/different. Like all things in society, some stereotypes will hold true, even with some people conforming to that