Stereotypes In Adichie's The Danger Of A Single Story

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In a TED talk in titled “The danger of a single story”, Adichie, a Nigerian novelist and short story writer, stated that the problem with stereotypes is not that they are not true, but that they are incomplete. They make one story be the only story of members of a social group. That single story makes the recognition of equal humanity difficult as it emphasises on our differences (mostly negative) rather than similarities. She further states that the consequences of a single story is that it robes people of their self-worth. In this talk, Adichie uses her personal stories to illustrate the effects of stereotypes. This talk brings to light how prejudice (bias) manifests itself through stereotype and how it influences our judgement and behaviour towards a stereotyped individual or social group. In this regard, my main argument is that stereotypes are deeply ingrained in our social and cultural structures that they manifest into prejudices that we are usually unconscious about…show more content…
Drawing from Lindsey (2005), gender roles are socially accepted attitudes and behaviours associated with a status. These roles shape our lives, attitudes and behaviour. This implies that they also influence the formation of our identity as they provide us with a direction of how to behave and think in order to fit in the society and maintain order. Gender roles are primarily constructed by the four main agents of socialisation; family, school, peers and media. A close examination of these agents reveals that from the smallest unit of society to institutional level, individuals are represented by their gender. Significantly, these agents of socialisation have created and work at maintaining standard expectations of the behaviours of each gender. This is generally how the mainstream society works, everyone has to fit in their designated
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