A few years ago, my company embarked on a thrilling project—changing the carpeting throughout the office. Which shade of gray would the design committee choose? Dark? Light? Might they pick blue? (What! No! Let’s not get too radical!)
They could’ve selected pink, for all I cared, which was not at all.
Then I was forced to care. A committee member sent me an email asking me to join the team because “you’re probably really good at design.”
Of what sort? I consistently broke the corporate dress code by wearing sneakers, rarely tucking in my shirt, and refusing to wear a suit or a tie because I didn’t want to set a precedent. Maybe my blue contact lenses impressed my coworker.
But probably it was something else, so I stopped by her cubicle and said, “Hey Jane*!” (I think you know the reason for the asterisk.) “Outta curiosity, how come you thought I’d be interested in picking our new carpets?”
“I just figured you have a good eye for these sorts of things,” she replied.
“Because I majored in fashion design in college?” I asked.
“Did you? I didn’t know that.” Of course she didn’t.
“Or is it because I’m gay?” I asked in a playful tone, free of any accusation.
“Of course not!” she laughed nervously.
Of course I was right, since I was out at work and that was all she likely knew about me based on our limited interaction.
It takes a lot to offend me, much more than someone speculating that I have good taste. Still, the incident left a bad taste in my mouth.
Normally, we (rightly) get upset by negative stereotypes—you know, the lazy Latino, the angry Black man, the cheap Jew, the ditzy blonde, and did you hear that Mohammed in marketing belongs to a terrorist cell? We’re less quick, however, to condemn positive stereotypes because, well, they often work to our advantage. At the very least, they seem harmless.
But to ignore complimentary typecasting is to misunderstand the real issue: It’s not the nature of the stereotype but the stereotype itself that’s the problem. And so, it’s important to evaluate all of our assumptions, especially because positive stereotyping may actually be worse than its negative counterpart.
A couple years back, a study showed three groups of subjects three types of fake articles about Black people: that they’re less intelligent, that they’re more violent, and that they’re good at sports. Subjects were most likely to accept the validity of the third argument.
Here’s the danger in that: Researchers also discovered that participants exposed to the positive athletic stereotype were likelier than the other two groups to say that Black people would cheat or commit a crime. In other words, positive stereotypes can reinforce negative ones.
Another study, “When Compliments Fail to Flatter,” showed that Asians grew upset when others assumed they were good at math, just as women were annoyed by those assuming they were nurturing and cooperative because of their gender.
The bottom line: We should reject all stereotyping. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that we should file EEOC complaints when someone compliments us because of our gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Still, it never hurts to point out the cliché of what happens when you assume—you make an ass out of you and…nope, just you.
By the way, I never joined the committee and remember only that gay pink was not the chosen color.
