WHAT IS DIFFERENCE AND PREJUDICE?
There are many things that make us what we are – how we live, the languages we speak, what we eat, wear, the games we play, and the things we celebrate.
All of these are influenced both by the geography and history of the place where we live.
You will get an idea of how diverse India is if you look even briefly at the following statement:
There are eight major religions in the world. Every single one of them is practised in India. We have more than 1600 languages that are people's mother tongues, and there are more than a hundred dance forms.
Yet this diversity is not always celebrated. This is because we feel safe and secure with people who look, talk, dress, and think like us.
Sometimes when we meet people who are very different from us we may find them strange and unfamiliar. At times we may not understand or know the reasons why they are different from us. People also form certain attitudes and opinions about others who are not like them.
Some of these statements see villagers as ignorant and see people in cities as money-minded and lazy. When our opinions about certain people are always negative – seeing them as lazy, stingy – as some of these statements, then these become prejudices that we carry about them.
Prejudice means to judge other people negatively or see them as inferior. When we think that only one particular way is the best and right way to do things we often end up not respecting others, who may prefer to do things differently. For example, if we think English is the best language and other languages are not important, we are judging these other languages negatively. As a result, we might not respect people who speak languages other than English.
We can be prejudiced about many things: people's religious beliefs, the colour of their skin, the region they come from, the accent they speak in, the clothes they wear, etc. Often, our prejudices about others are so strong that we don't want to form friendships with them. At times, we may even act in ways that hurt them.
Source: This topic is taken from NCERT TEXTBOOK
CREATING STEREOTYPES
All of us are familiar with gender differences. What does it mean to be a boy or a girl? Many of you would say, "We are born as boys and girls. It is a given. What is there to think about?" Let's see if this is the case.
If we take the statement '' They don't cry", you'll see that this is a quality that is generally associated with boys and men. As babies or children when boys fall and hurt themselves, their parents and other family members often console them by saying "Don't cry. You are a boy. Boys are brave, they don't cry." As children grow up they start believing that boys do not cry so that even if a boy feels like crying he stops himself from doing so. He also believes that crying is a sign of weakness. So, even though both boys and girls sometimes want to cry, especially if they are angry or in pain, as they grow older boys learn or teach themselves not to cry. If a grown boy cries, then he feels that others will either tease him or laugh at him, and so he stops himself from doing so in front of others.
This is the way boys are and this is how girls are: these are statements we hear constantly and accept without even thinking, and we start believing that each one of us must behave accordingly. We fit all boys and all girls into an image that society creates around us.
When we fix people into one image we create a stereotype. When people say that those who belong to a particular country, religion, sex, race, or economic background are "stingy," "lazy," "criminal" or "dumb," they are using stereotypes. There are stingy and generous people everywhere, in every country, in every religion, in every group whether rich or poor, male or female. And just because some people are like that it is not fair to think that everyone will be the same.
Stereotypes stop us from looking at each person as a unique individual with his or her own special qualities and skills that are different from others. They fit large numbers of people into only one pattern or type. Stereotypes affect all of us as they prevent us from doing certain things, that we might otherwise be good at.
Stereotype about some Muslims
A common stereotype about some Muslims is that they are not interested in educating girls and therefore do not send girls to school. However, studies have now shown that poverty amongst Muslims is an important reason why Muslim girls do not attend a school or drop out from school after a few years.
Wherever effort has been made to reach education to the poor, there the Muslim community has shown an interest in sending their girls to school.
For example, in the state of Kerala, the distance between the school and the home is not much. There is a good government bus service that helps teachers reach schools in rural areas and over sixty percent of the teachers are women. These factors have helped children from poorer families, including Muslim girls, attend school in much larger numbers.
In other states, where such efforts have not been made children from poorer families whether Muslim, tribal, or so-called lower castes find it difficult to attend school. Therefore, poverty, not a religion, is the cause for the non-attendance of Muslim girls in school.
Discuss
1. You can take other statements such as They are soft and gentle or They are well behaved and discuss how these are applied to girls. Do girls possess these qualities at birth or do they learn such behaviour from others? What do you think about girls who are not soft and gentle and those who are naughty?
2. Answer the following illustrations.
Source: This topic is taken from NCERT TEXTBOOK