Don’t Just Avoid It:
How to Counteract Stereotype in Writing

 2. Replace Stereotype with Living Truth

Simply avoiding stereotypes or stating that they are untrue will not alter the distorted images already fixed in readers’ minds. However, lively pictures of real people will have the power to replace the old, stereotypical caricatures. You can study the stereotypes and stigmas forced on the people with whom you work, and then consistently craft your writing on both obvious and subtle levels to paint a more accurate and humane picture of them. For instance, let’s say you are working with developmentally disabled people. They are stigmatized and stereotyped as helpless and unintelligent, requiring extensive resources and support, but unable to give back to society. So are you inadvertently supporting the stereotype by writing about them as passive receivers of your services, or are you showing that they are active people contributing to their communities, and each individual is appreciated for a unique personality and set of talents?

Try making a table like the one below, listing each stereotype concerning the people with whom you work, the truth as you know it, and ideas of how you can show that truth in both small-scale and obvious ways.

This example is from a table about people who are overweight:

Stories of individuals (true or composite) are especially effective because they can touch readers’ compassion and make them feel a poignant connection with a particular individual, and thereafter perceive the entire group differently. If you offer a wide range of such stories, readers will see the variety, complexity, and vibrancy of lives in motion under the umbrella of any particular category of people.

It is all too easy to unintentionally buttress stereotypes and dehumanize people, for only the most offensive words and expressions are clearly labeled by our society as inappropriate. There are many more subtle ways that language is used to perpetuate marginalization of certain groups of people, and we are so used to seeing them that we may not consciously notice. Yet people are sensitive, and all the little things add up to an atmosphere conducive to prejudice. The subtleties of language are therefore deeply influential. To create thorough and lasting change, we need to be strategic in the nuances of how we write and talk. Imagine what the world would be like if we all did this? So many common dehumanizing stereotypes would not even be expressible anymore, their vocabulary forgotten so that we could not think them, and would have to see each other first and foremost as simply
humans together.

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