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Here is a link to the TedTalk mentioned in the previous post. Please watch it if you have the time! It is very valuable in our world today

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Chiamando Adichie is an acclaimed author who focuses on empowering Africans through her works. She gave a TedTalk entitled “The Danger of a Single Story” in which she discusses the stereotype that most people have of Africa as being a country full of poverty and crime. She disproves this stereotype by giving a personal anecdote of her experience with this stereotype. When she moved to America for college, her roommate assumed due to her origins that she did not know how to use a stovetop; this proves our stereotype of those from Africa as “backwards and unmodernised” people. Her TedTalk was a very empowering and important speech that discusses the importance of awareness of single stories and is something that everyone should listen to.

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Social Comparison Theory

 One of the reasons that single stories come to be in our society is the social comparison theory; the Social Comparison Theory was first proposed by psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954. It states that people have an innate behaviour to evaluate themselves and often compare themselves to others. The comparisons we make to others inevitably leads to the formation of stereotypes that most of us unintentionally place on certain groups in our society. For example, a common stereotype of homeless and poor people is that they are very lazy and they have put themselves in the situation that they are in. However, this is not true as many who are homeless were simply born into it. 

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People are much deeper than stereotypes. That's the first place our minds must go. Then you get to know them and you hear their stories, and you say, I'd never have guessed

Carson Kressley

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This girl posts an angry gif about her experience with stereotypes of Asians.

HERE’S WHAT ‘YELLOW FEVER’ REALLY MEANS

“All my ex-girlfriends are Asian.”

If you’ve ever come across this charming come-on, you’ve probably been exposed to yellow fever

For her full rant watch the video here.

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This little girl disproves the stereotype that all girls care about are toys and boys. She is standing up for equal rights for all women and displaying her bravery and courage by doing something as normal as protesting.

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Introduction

This account is a student-led blog to raise awareness of the dangers of single stories by posting pictures of people from different socio-economic, race and gender doing normal everyday things. We hope to break down the stereotypes that society has put on these groups by showing others that we are all similar and thus we focus on finding the normalcy rather than differences in others. #FindTheNorm