Kine 1000 First Essay

Stereotyping the World
Short Essay: Your Body and Society
Socio-Cultural Perspectives in Kinesiology
HH/KINE 1000 Section C
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Name: Mimi Ramos
Student Number: mhmm

In the world that we live in today, prejudice and stereotyping has a great impact on our perspectives of others. Every day, people are criticized and judged on their appearance based their body weight, their height and the way we look. I myself have also experienced judgement due to my physical appearance. To start, I am taller than most people my age, and it causes people to view me as powerful, athletic and intimidating. Also my thin frame evokes prejudice and leads others to underestimate my abilities; they assume that I am weak. Lastly, people have different first impressions of me based on my tattoo and the way I dress. These physical traits provoke both positive and negative criticism. Ultimately, people do not judge me based on my behaviour and personality, but rather based on the way I present my body and my physical appearance.

People who are tall are usually feared and appear as a threat. My physical feature such as being tall causes people to judge me. Being tall is usually associated with being looked at as powerful and intimidating. For example, I can relate to this through my experience when walking by people in the middle of the night; others tend to keep their distance from me, avoid eye contact and sometimes even cross the street to avoid any interaction. Due to my tall stature, I look less vulnerable and avoid less conflict compared to someone who is shorter than me. Also, due to my height, people automatically assume that I’m athletic or that I’m good at sports because of my height advantage. For instance, during high school, teachers and peers attempted to recruit me to numerous sports teams such as basketball, volleyball and ultimate frisbee. Their effort in trying to include me within various groups made me feel wanted and this helped boost my self-esteem. Without my height, these coaches and peers would not have seen “potential” and would not have considered me in the first place. Finally my tallness provides the people I accompany — such as friends and family — a sense of security. When one of my friends got into a heated argument with someone, the person was right up on my friends face and started to push him back but when I intervened to help my friend, the person started to back off. My presence gave the person arguing with my friend less confidence to continue. This also helped my friend to feel safe and protected around me. Overall, my height has an impact on people’s perspective of me and has led me to be judged for better or for worse.

Those who are skinny are usually stereotyped and judge, some are even picked on because they appear so vulnerable and weak. For instance, since I am thin, people tend to think that I do not workout therefore thinking I am weak, and when I go to the gym, people always assume that it is my first time there. Others feel obligated to try to teach me proper form and recommend a variety of workouts to do. They seem surprised when I tell them that I have a workout schedule and that I’ve been going to the gym to work out for almost three years now. Just because I am skinny, people think they know more than me when it comes to working out, but this is not necessarily true, since I’ve been working out for a long time to know how to work out properly. Also, when playing basketball, my thin frame gives my opponents the impression that I do not look like a challenge. Every time I play basketball, teams always send their weakest defender on me thinking that I am weak and not good enough to score on him. Thanks to my skinny figure teams always underestimate me by giving their weakest defender the task of guarding me. This advantage has helped me to achieve titles such as leading scorer and MVP for the various teams I have joined. In general, my lean physique leads to people looking down on me and underestimating my skill.

The way in which people treat me and approach me is based on the way I present myself. The way I dress determines how others approach me or do not approach me at all. For example, when I am on the bus and I am wearing loose clothing, I see that not as much people want to sit beside me compared to when I am wearing a more professional attire. On a bus ride to school, I was wearing my hooded sweater and jogging pants and for the whole ride no one dared to take the open seat beside me. The way I dress gave me an unapproachable atmosphere to my fellow commuters. In comparison, when I am wearing a dress shirt and dress pants I noticed that more people sat beside me on the bus and some even attempted to have conversations with me. This outfit makes me look much more professional and approachable. Likewise, my tattoo also has an impact on how people see me. People seem to think that having a tattoo automatically makes you a bad person. This one time when I entered a barber shop I overheard a mother and her son having a conversation about my tattoo. The boy asked her mom if she would let him get a tattoo like mines and his mom replied by telling him that only people who do not care and respect for their bodies get tattoo’s. My tattoo makes me seem like I do not care about myself. Similarly, my tattoo makes it difficult for others to trust me because they have the pre-conceived idea that people with tattoos are trouble makers. Whenever I enter a small store such as a convenience store, I have noticed how the store owner treats me. The store owner always leaves his/her position at the cash register and walks to the same aisle as me and pretends to be stocking the shelves when in fact I know that he/she is actually watching me because they think I might be stealing. People with tattoos are generally viewed as rebels, troublemakers, and results into people thinking that we are always up to no good. Hence, the way in which I present my body leads to varied first impressions. In conclusion, my height, body shape and the manner by which I present myself leads people to prejudge me based of my appearance rather than my personality, behaviour and other factors. My tallness has lead people to believe that I am powerful, athletic and intimidating. Similarly, my thin build gives people the impression that I am vulnerable and led people to belittle my capabilities. Also, my decision to dress myself a certain way and my tattoo can cause people to make assumptions on my personality whether it is good or bad. Prejudice is still a relevant issue because it limits an individual’s potential. If we are born small, society restricts that person’s mindset to be an athlete because in society we bias the fact that only tall people can excel to be good a sports. Therefore, our society has taught us to live life according to the stereotypes based on our appearance.