This is no joke. Sorry if you thought I was going to double you up with laughter. No, today I’m talking stereotyping! I thought it was a thing of the past, but it seems it’s as evident today as it has always been.
Take, for example, television. Have you ever noticed that in a pub scene on a TV show, the men seem to be constantly drinking pints or bottles of beer, while the women drink glasses of wine or a gin-and-vodka tonic?
How often have you seen a man in a pub scene drinking a glass of wine and a woman drinking a beer? Some may say it’s down to taste, but surely not all the men in Coronation Street only drink beer while the women always order a glass of wine?
I’ll give it to Emmerdale (another UK soap opera), as I have seen at least one female character (the vicar!) drinking a pint of beer. It’s refreshing to see, but I’ve yet to see any men walk in and ask for a gin and tonic! It’s always “pint please, Chas.”
Let’s turn our attention to the news. I know many people don’t watch the news on TV because it’s always depressing, but take ‘Breakfast’, the BBC’s early morning news programme.
Why does the man always sit on the left of the screen, while his co-presenter, a woman, always sits on the right? Is it some kind of power struggle? Why can’t they occasionally swap positions?
This leads me to wonder why it always has to be a man and a woman when two people read the news on TV. ‘Breakfast’ occasionally has two women presenting the show, but I’ve never seen it with two men. Why? Is it not acceptable for two men to present the news together?
It’s precisely the same over on ITV. The man sits on the left of the screen while the woman always sits on the right.
Have you noticed that the male presenter seems much older (not you, Charlie) than the woman presenter? Very rarely is it the other way around? Is there a reason for that?
Let’s move on to driving. Yesterday, while waiting to cross the road, I counted the cars that drove past, where a man and woman were sitting in the front of the vehicle. Would you be surprised if I told you that it was the man who was driving in just about all of the cars?
I saw it while on holiday as well. The man usually drives a hired vehicle while the woman sits in the front passenger seat.
It happens in our family all the time. We go to pick up my sister-in-law and her husband, and I can guarantee that my sister-in-law will sit in the back seat while her husband will sit in the front passenger seat.
The same goes for my niece and her husband. When they come to visit us, he always drives, regardless of whose car they are using.
Take two couples going off on a car journey together. Why do the men always sit together in the front while the two women sit in the back of the car?
Sport also suffers from stereotyping. Today, I was delighted to hear that Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow won an Olympic bronze medal in the synchronised 10m platform diving.
On TV, ‘Breakfast’ mentioned it all morning, and the interview with Daley and Goodfellow was aired far too many times. They even interviewed a friend of Daley and Goodfellow’s, who talked the audience through the last dive more times than I care to remember.
However, where were Clare Balding and Co when Ed Ling won an Olympic bronze medal in the men’s trap shooting for Great Britain? Was he not worthy of an interview, Ms Balding? And why, unlike Daley and Goodfellow, did he only get a few seconds of a mention on ‘Breakfast’? Ed, if you’re reading this, then, unlike the BBC, I’d be delighted to interview you and celebrate the fact that you won an Olympic bronze medal.
Finally, let’s turn back to drink. How many of you ladies enjoy drinking whisky? Does anybody out there consider whisky to be only a man’s drink? Why am I asking these questions? It’s something that recently came up in conversation.
It seems I’m as guilty as most others at stereotyping. Reading through this post, why did I put an exclamation mark after the word vicar? Do vicars not drink alcohol?
Do you have any examples of stereotyping in today’s world? Does it bother you, or is it something we just take for granted?
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