Stereotype of Muslim Women being oppressed
Stereotype of Muslim Women being oppressed
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Introduction
The existences of stereotypes in the modern modeled society avails a double egded scenarios to the any eminent community. Stereotypes facilitate the creation of unfounded beliefs that far only aids in eventual disintegration of the community instead of sealing the bonds of togetherness. From time immemorial, creation of stereotypes only aided in the formation of hypothesis in various studies. However, the eventual findings mostly deviate from researchers expectations.
Wide dissimilarities intimated by various historians and people of past generation are perhaps no longer existent due to globalization or even acquisition of new culture by various groups of people who applied them in the past. Notably, most of the stereotypes could have been true in past years but unexpectedly changed while the written records never changed therefore most people reading them from the libraries acquaint with wrong facts. Other possibilities could also be that most of the historical data could have been collected by biased researchers leading to biased conclusions. Numerous stereotypes are still in operation to day, for instance, the association of the blacks with hostility, barbarism and savage attitudes; the linking of the Muslim women with being victims of male chauvinism and religion criticism; the association of certain human acts with devil worshipping acts and many others. The ritualistic comprehension of the highlights underwent through by the earlier Muslim women is notoriously considerable. Most women underwent very pathetic states of life including rejection and inability to participate in most activities of life. However, at present most women are emancipated have therefore critical say in advancement of their lives. This renders the historical stereotype on women to be just a remaining shell after things altered some years ago. Conversely, the stereotypes could be true to variant spheres of life in some places where Islam dominates. However, cultures are prone to alteration ranging and therefore the strongest culture eventually dominates over the other.
The Muslim women veil or hijab has in the recent past become the pinnacle of oppression for Muslim. Different nations have even prohibited different clothing’s especially in public places for clothing’s associated with Muslims. These prohibitions are based on the notion that the women need to be saved from the harsh Muslim rules and that these practices conflict with western beliefs. Stereotyping refers to a mental picture adopted by one group in regards to another different group that shares a given characteristic. For example, most people perceive Muslim women as veiled and mysterious victims of male oppression awaiting liberation. Others think of Muslim women as uneducated foreigners with whom westerners have nothing or little in common. Usually, these images have little to do with the real life of these women and may have been formed to suit other people’s interests. There are several cognitive theories that explain how stereotypes like those that are described above are formed. There are three main theories that explain the formation of stereotypes. With reference to the provided experiments and slides most of the of the stereotypes emerge due to social learning, illusory correlation, and ultimate attribution error and continuum model .
The influences of the cognitive structures
These theories are based on the argument that stereotypes are formed from the information people get from different sources. For example, when people perceive members of a particular group doing something, or are told that the group is a certain way or read stories and articles about that group, people keep account of all this information in their brain whether it is accurate or not. Therefore, every time people learn something about a group, it is kept in the knowledge store. However, the way people’s brain encodes information is subject to several biases. For example, at times people learn the correct information and, therefore, form stereotypes that have some truth. At other times, people perceive associations that may exist or may not exist, therefore, forming false stereotypes. Whichever way these stereotypes are formed they significantly affect the way people perceive and behave towards others.
Muslim women have been subjected to a lot of stereotypes. These stereotypes have mainly been furthered and sustained in society because of lack of information regarding these women. There are several examples of the stereotypes that have been formed against Muslim women. For example, many view Muslim women as oppressed individuals who lack the freedom to lead their lives as they wish. Westerners also think that Muslim women are uneducated, and, therefore, lack opportunities to work professionally. One of the reasons why people think this way is because they think that all Muslim women are bred for marriage and life as caretakers of their families and homes. These stereotypes are critical as they influence how people behave towards Muslims and Muslim women.
The cognitive theory of social theory points out that people can learn by just observing other people’s behaviors in the context in which it exists. For example, children observe and copy the behaviors of their peers and parents; therefore, if their parents show stereotypic attitudes or behave in ways that are stereotypic, children will also learn to behave in that manner. Their perceptions and behaviors are reinforced as they grow when they are punished or reinforced. Many American children have grown up knowing that Muslims are terrorists and that Islam is an oppressive religion especially to the women. Children get these perceptions from watching the news. These perceptions are further reinforced by the fact that their parents hold the same perceptions and behave in ways that reinforce the perception that Islam is oppressive and violent towards its women.
With regards to the continuum model and the specified stereotypic contents , there is drawing of double models that assists in addressing certain process and contents of the social images impression and categorical formation. With regards to continuum, most people default on to category inclined basis to form their impressions of other and even responds immediately due to attraction of the schema-induced impacts, discriminatory influence and stereotypic associations. With regards to continuum model, sufficient information and desired motivation typically overwhelm categories thus influencing additional individual process. As relatable to Muslim women cases, then most people hurry to conclusions due to inherent consideration of the schema triggered options without regards to inner holding of the truth.
Clearly, the perception of Muslim women as uneducated and oppressed by their religion and men is nothing but a stereotype. The issues facing most of the Muslim women all over the world today are similar to those facing most women population in other parts of the world. These women are not different from the rest of the women population in the world. There is a population of elite Muslim women who have been successful in their lives, and who have exercised autonomy and power within economic and social networks. Some of these women are leaders in their chosen careers and countries. It is impossible to argue that all these women share a status. As it follows, stereotypes of Muslim women as especially oppressed bear little similarity to the real situation. Yet the attempt to describe the status of women in Islam persists.
Illusory correlation explains stereotype formation by indicating that people can form perceptions of an association when one is not present. For example, in many cases minority groups are different, and in many cases, people form false negative associations between minorities and attributes or behaviors. For example, people overestimate the frequency of distinctive pairings. Therefore, because Muslims are the minority in the western world, people are usually quick to form false associations between them and some of their characteristics. For example, people are quick to associate the hijab that most Muslim women wear with oppression. Hamilton and Gifford carried out a study in 1976 to indicate how illusory correlation leads to the formation of stereotypes. Their study had to do with the study of 39 behaviors describing members of two groups. The study wanted to show how certain behaviors were most notable and which were associated with popular, social or irritable behavior.
There are several examples of Muslim women all over the world who have shown that these stereotypes are false. Lack of information and awareness of such achievements is one of the reasons why these stereotypes persist in society. For example, many women who are dedicated Muslims, who even wear the hijab and follow the Islam religion to the letter have successful careers. Despite their religion and being Muslim women, as well as perceived oppression, they are some of the best professionals in the United States. Furthermore, a lot of Muslim women are free to follow all their dreams as they travel all over the world and are even pursuing their education. These are just a few examples that show that the perception that Muslim women are oppressed is just a stereotype.
Ultimate attribution error attributes ones behavior to their personality, ignoring other situational constraints that might be present. This is to mean that society will likely associate the negative actions of a member of an out-group to his or her disposition. For example, the negative actions of some Muslim men like violence and oppression towards their women is likely to be associated with the situation of the rest of the Muslim women. While it is true that some Muslim men oppress their women, society is likely to generalize this because society views Islam negatively. In an in-group, the same behavior would not be generalized as it would be attributed to a situation and not to the person’s disposition.
There are reasons why these stereotypes still exist even in times when there is sufficient information to disapprove them. One of the reasons why stereotypes exist is categorization. This is the process through which objects and ideas are differentiated, recognized and understood. Social categorization is especially critical when it comes to stereotyping groups. This is the process of ordering the social environment in terms of groupings or categories or people in a way that is meaningful to the concerned person.
Once people have formed stereotypes, they require capacity and motivation not to stereotype. This is to mean that people need cognitive energy and desire to prevent themselves from stereotype application. However, in cases when people are not motivated to individuate other people, they will utilize stereotypes to judge them. In another study, Gilbert and Hixon argued that people will make use of stereotypes to judge others if they do not have the ability to individuate them this informs that formation of stereotypic beliefs are a resultant of absence of truth in that sector, thus people quickly generate their own ‘conclusive’ stereotypic findings.. Smith, Miller, Maitner, Crump, Garcia-Marques and Mackie in 2006 emphasized this by pointing out that people will use stereotypes to judge others if they are not motivated to individuate them. For example, in the case of Muslim women, most people do not have any desire to see them as individuals and; therefore, they use the stereotype that they are oppressed to judge them.
In conclusion, the numbers of the successful Muslim women indicates how rejection of the unfounded Muslim women stereotype can overwhelmingly alter the widely accepted dehumanization into a progressive modeled life for the Muslim women. The instances of the queen of Jordan and cousins outlined in the provided documents exhibits the failure of the stereotypic beliefs to bear some dependable essence. According to queen, numerous beliefs have to restructure and other eliminated in the process of achieving sanity in and availing a future to potential Islamic women larders.
