Stereotypes

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews and discusses the issue of stereotypes. The paper focuses on the aging and homosexual communities, to provide examples of stereotyping. According to the paper, not all older people have hearing problems, forget all the time, live in nursing homes, refrain from sex and have stopped learning. The paper further reports that gays are not "made" gay by the person who raises them nor are all gay men after nothing but sex.

From the Paper:

"This common misconception of older people as poor, frail, fearful, depressed, idle, unwanted and selfish does not agree with their self-perception. Lou Harris and Associates compared the public's expectations of the problems connected with aging to the responses of older people about their actual problems (Fugate and Lamdin). On all these commonly agreed upon ideas about aging, public expectations were dramatically more negative than by what older people said: 77 percent of older people do not fear crime; 79 percent consider themselves in good health; 85 percent have enough money; 88 percent are not lonely; 93 percent feel needed; and 94 percent keep busy. Nor, does the mind go quickly as one becomes older, with great forgetfulness, lack of learning ability and senility."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bytheway, B., and Johnson, J. On defining ageism. Critical Social Policy, (1993). 29, 27-39.
• Butler, R. Ageism: Another form of bigotry. The Gerontologist,(1969) 9, 243-246.
• Featherstone, Mike and Wernick, Andrew Wernick Images of Aging: Cultural Representations of Later Life NY:Routledge, 1995
• Frye, Marilyn The Politics of Reality Trumansburg, N.Y.,: The Crossing Press, 1983.
• Fugate, Lois and Lamdin, Lois Elderlearning: New Frontier in an Aging Society NY:Oryx Press, 1997

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• Term Paper # 144237 : "Media Stereotypes"
• Research Paper # 72869 : "Gender Stereotypes in Children's Books"

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