peterson@istari.DEC (Bob Peterson) (03/04/86)
Stereotypes. The term was a printer's word for the lead newsprint master plate (I only minored in Printing, so more experienced folk can correct me, please). From the general lack of coherent definition about the subject (we're swishy, we're butch, we're invisible, we're doctors...) I'd like to chime in and perhaps put to rest further confusion. A stereotype, regardless of it's content, is useful and restrictive. It's useful to quickly summarize ideas and keep conversation apace. It's restrictive in that no one person ever falls under the full label. Whatever the label is, or it's implications. And those nuances of meaning are largely different for everyone, it seems. Without stereotypes (or indeed words themselves) we'd have to communicate like the Ents in "The Lord of The Rings": talking for years just to say the word "hill". I guess the trick is to use them sparingly and make sure we don't operate on unfounded notions where it may be important to know how someone is and isn't. I hope that makes sense and is to the point. Now, the first person who finds their teeth being cleaned by a lisping dentist in leather... \bob