Stereotypes about women
Boy = strong, aggressive, the leader Girl = weak, passive, the follower Therefore, Girl < Boy = Girl is inferior to Boy

The most prominent stereotype is the way women are seen as housewives. They are looked upon as the people who should just clean the house and take care of the children. This stereotype has existed for hundreds of years. For example, when you were little didn't you always play "house"? Well, in this little "pretend" game, the daddy always comes home from work, while the mommy is cooking or cleaning. Then the daddy would sit down and the mommy would call the children and serve them dinner. The funny thing is that this "pretend" game is really a non-fiction dramatization of life. Also, the "republican motherhood" is a perfect example of this. The ideal said that women were to stay at home and raise the children to be good, and loyal to the republic. Presently, women do take more jobs, and do hold many positions of power, this stereotype is still pressed upon the female population. Also, did you know that, on average, for every dollar men make, women only make 60 cents?

The Chinese had the housewife stereotype deeply embedded in its culture. Long ago, they would bind the women's feet. When a girl was about 6 or 7 years old, they would have their arch broken and their toes bent under and bound. This process was very painful but it was the only way to ensure that the woman would have tiny little "golden lilies" for the rest of her life that were considered beautiful at the time. Women who did not have their feet bound were considered a disgrace. This was not only painful for the first year or so, but was painful for the rest of the woman's life. Women whose feet were bound could only hobble around and were not able to run or walk properly. This practice allowed men to continue to think that they were much better than women because the women were not able to do anything, not being able to walk. It was no competition. The men with the big, strong feet were superior to the women with the tiny golden lilies that caused so much pain whenever they stood up. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a man who first brought this idea into practice. If you thought this was interesting, you may want to read Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom, by Katherine Paterson, which touches on the role of women in the Chinese society.

Since they have been born, girls have continuously been brainwashed by stories and fairytales of how women are to be housewives and helpless. Take Cinderella for example. This fairytale proves to girls that being a good housewife will make you beautiful and desirable by all men. The authors obviously thought that women who did not do housework were useless to society, and gave the characteristics of the stepsisters as ugly, rude, and ill-mannered. The stepmother was an independent woman who tried to rule a household without being ruled by a man. The authors failed to show this. As for dear sweet Cinderella, she may have been sweet, and she might have been beautiful, but the bottom line is, she was a stupid dummy with no mind of her own.

Another example of a stereotype is taught to many girls in their teen and pre-teen years. Many mothers will teach their daughters that if you have an unhappy marriage, it is because you married the wrong man. Many mothers will not tell their daughters that an unhappy marriage is the result of the frustration of an unequal marriage. And instead of being taught to earn things for themselves, girls are taught that it all comes through a man, the right man. And in order for Mr.Right to come into a girl's life, she must be pretty and charming at all times.

Also, women are looked upon as the "weaker sex." Roget's Thesaurus even gives "weaker sex" as an alternative word for "woman." This is a clear injustice. Some women may be somewhat physically or mentally weaker than some men, but there are still women that are much stronger than the average man. A woman is by no means weaker, and although it is assumed that this is understood, it may not be. Many people may consider women to be the "weaker sex."

Many religions and cultures consider women to be less too.  The Greeks, in the myth "Pandora's Box", had implied that women were responsible for all the suffering in the world. Plato was convinced that women should be classified as animals because of their lack of intelligence. Aristotle suggested that women were a mistake. And lastly from the Greed culture, Menander had said "A woman is necessarily an evil, but he that gets the most tolerable one is lucky." Hindus were taught " A woman must never be free of subjagation or slavery." The Middle Ages Church had debated over whether women had souls. Lastly, a German proverb states "A woman has the form of an angel...and the mind of a donkey."

To make it even worse, many famous people in our history had influenced us to think of females as incapable, ignorant creatures. The poet Tennyson, said "Woman is the lesser man." George Meredith had said, "I expect women will be the last thing civilized by man." Schopenhauer had described women as "childish, frivolous, and shortsighted". Nietzshe explained, "When you go to a woman, do not forget to take along your whip." The French philosopher, Rousseau, had said "Men need to teach women to be obedient. It was necessary to accustom them early to such confinement, that it may afterward cost them to dear; and to the suppression of their caprices that they may be more readily submit to the will of others." He also had written, "She ought to learn to suffer injustices and to bear insult of husband without complaint." Martin Luther King had believed that women were secondary to men. Hitler had accused women of being a Jewish plot.

There are stereotypes everywhere in our lives today. We think that our world is completely free of them but of course this is not true. Stereotypes are deeply rooted in people's minds, and together we have to work hard to change how people think.

Adaptes from http://www.gurlpages.com/susan_b/stereotypes.html