What is Prejudice and Stereotype? How do they lead to Discrimination?

I think you must have listen the phrases or may be you have perception like people belong to a particular race, religion, region etc are "stingy", "lazy", "dumb", "criminal" etc. But the fact is that people with the above stated properties are everywhere, in every race, in every religion and at every region.

And also you must have seen or listen, people say that women are gentle, they are soft, men are strong, they do not cry etc, do girls or boys born with these qualities or they develop after?

In this post we will discuss mainly two words Prejudice and Stereotype. And we will see how do these two words lead to discrimination against.

First, what is Prejudice?

Prejudice

Prejudice consists of two Latin words "Prae" which means "In advance" and "Judicium" means "judgement". The combined Latin word Praejudicium means judgement in advance with knowing about anything completely.

Prejudice mean to judge people negatively or see them inferior.

When we think that a particular way of doing things is best and right way to do things, we often end up not respecting others, who may prefer to do things differently. For example, if we think that a particular language is best language and other languages are not important, we are judging these other languages negatively and we may end up not respecting people who speak these other languages.

There can be prejudice about many things like people's religious belief, the colour of their skin, the region they come from, the food they eat, the cloths they wear, the accent they speak etc. Often our prejudice about other people is so strong that we do not want to form friendship with them. Even, sometimes we act in way that hurts them.

Now, what is stereotype?

Stereotype

This is a french work word consists of "Stere" which means "solid" and "type" means "simply type". Therefore stereotype means "Solid Type".

When we fix people into one image we create a stereotype or it is commonly held mentally picture. For example when we say that girls are good at cooking and men are suitable for army or other adventurous activities but that's completely wrong because there are many famous chef who are prominent for their cooking and there are also many girls who proved their ability in adventurous activities like there are many women in army, in air force, many women scaled the highest peak of the world the Mountain Everest etc. 

And because some people are stingy, dumb, criminal or lazy it is not fair to think that everyone will be the same.

It is very dangerous because it stops us from looking at each person as a unique individual with his or her own special qualities or skill that are different from others. We fit a large group of people into only one pattern or type.

Stereotype affect all of us as they prevent us from doing certain activities or things that we might be otherwise good at because we feel that this is not done by us or it is supposed to be done by someone else.

Discrimination

Discrimination means different behavior against an individual or group of people or not treating everyone same. It happens when people act on their prejudice or stereotype. It takes place because of several reasons like 

1. Diversity- People of different culture, region or religion may be discriminated against. They are discriminated because their culture, custom or practices are seen as inferior.
2. Inequality-People who do not have resources or money to meet their basic needs, food, cloths are discriminated against at their work place, at hospitals, at colleges and they are treated badly because they are poor. 
3. Because of both Diversity and Inequality- People are discriminated when they belong to a group whose culture is not valued as well as they are poor.