Is there such a thing as a positive stereotype?

We've all heard the idea that stereotypes can be positive, but is that really true? Join us this month where we pull apart what makes stereotyping harmful, and whether it can ever be done in a helpful, positive way!

Articles discussed this month are:
'Strong Black Woman, Smart Asian Man: The Downside to Positive Stereotypes'
'Positive Age Stereotypes Improve Recovery Among the Elderly'

If you have a question for us, then you can submit it through this form.

Music used is:
Who Do You Think I Think You Are? by Mini Vandals 

Transcript

T:  Welcome back to another episode of D&I Digest.
H: I'm Henry, I use he/they pronouns.
T: And I'm Teagan, and I use she/her pronouns. We make up the diversity and inclusion team at Anchor, which is an organisation that specialises in housing and care for over 55s. This month we're going to be discussing positive stereotypes, and I put that in air quotes! If you haven't heard the phrase before it's where a stereotype focuses on a positive aspect  rather than a negative one, which we're probably more familiar with when it comes to stereotyping. Some more positive stereotypes are things that you might have heard like Black people being good at sports, or Asian people being good at maths, women being more caring and maternal, neurodivergent people  being good problem solvers and sort of the Rain Man stereotype of autism that you've probably all come across.  So  it really focuses on those good traits. We're going to question whether there's actually such thing as a positive stereotype or if stereotypes in all contexts are not something that we should really be...
H: Not ideal!
T: Yeah, not something we should really be  trying to  push forward and endorse, if you like.
H: Yeah, let's not aim for stereotypes.
T: Yes. So have you encountered positive stereotyping before, Henry?
H: I don't think I've really encountered it in terms of being queer?  I've encountered gendered stereotypes.
T: Sure.
H: But yeah, I was thinking the other day, I couldn't think of- particularly around like gayness- I couldn't think of any positive stereotypes.
T: Okay, interesting.
H: Because they're all insults or phrased to be insults anyway. Like I couldn't really think of positive ones. I even Googled it and it was like fashion sense and kind of softly spoken and it's like but those things are used to feminise gay men and make, and that's meant to be an insult, it's not a positive.
T: I mean there's a deeper conversation to be had there about femininity equals that.
H: Yeah, yeah exactly. But yeah I was trying to think of a an example of it and I couldn't really think of any so I don't think I've personally really experienced positive stereotyping other than I guess where people have said things like "You're really brave for coming out" or "Wow the world needs more people like you" which isn't something I've heard often but like that kind of "Oh, you talk about your trans experience and therefore that's impressive and brave and courageous and all of these things," but  I wouldn't have associated that with a positive stereotype. I thought that was just people kind of trying to be nice to me,
T: Yeah, sure.
H: Perhaps with good intentions but missing the mark slightly. 
T: But yeah, how about you?
T: Oh god, yeah, so many. I mean, I don't really think there's such things as stereotypes, if I'm honest. I think there's just stereotypes. They are usually not accurate in any way, shape or form. But things that I have heard are usually based on ethnicity, so it's things like, "Oh, I'm not surprised that you can sing. All Black women are good singers."
H: Rhythm as well. 
T: Rhythm, dancing, "Of course you can dance, I'm not surprised that you can dance. Black people are good at dancing." Maternal ability as well, referring to gender. I've often been sort of parentified my entire life for one reason or another. It's like, "Well you know, women are good at that stuff. You're just a mother hen and that's really quite nice." So yeah, I definitely have come across them in a variety of aspects in my life. Probably one related to queerness that I've experienced, but it is a recent shift I would say, and I think that's because queer culture has become slightly more mainstream than it ever has been due to the likes of things like RuPaul's Drag Race. It's the idea around  queerness and campness being fun.
H: Yeah okay yeah that's true.
T: So you know, it's like glitter and feather boas and you know, dancing on podiums and stuff, which is really not the be all and end all of queer culture, let's be honest.
H: Actually no, to be fair I have had one and it is to do with the theatre because lots of people assume that I am gay and they're like, "Oh of course, because you act."
T: So yeah I think there's definitely links that people make based on the person that you are, the person they perceive you to be.
H: That's already an interesting conversation though because I've never seen them as positive things because I've been quite aware of the insidious, okay you're calling femininity bad.
T: Yes. 
H: So  I've never interpreted it as positive stereotypes but perhaps it was meant like that, and it was just lost in translation. 
T: Yeah.
H: And  so yeah, maybe there's something to say in terms of who's classifying it as a positive stereotype because it can be said as a nice thing.
T: Yeah, I agree.
H: But it's not understood as one.
T: I think the point you're making is like around that intention. What's your intention behind saying this? 
H: Yeah, exactly.
T: What's the trade-off?  So if you're good at this thing, what do you think I'm bad at?
H: That's it, yeah.
T: And I think that's where you start to unpick this idea of positive stereotypes and how they can actually be quite damaging the more we perpetuate them, to be honest.
H: Yeah, they're just more subtle.
T: Yes, much more subtle. It's like not quite microaggression and it's definitely not aggression-aggression. But it is-
H: Kill them with kindness.
T: Yeah, it's sort of like there's an undercurrent of passive-aggressiveness with it all.
H: Yeah, they're backhanded compliments, aren't they?
T: Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of the time, yes. It's like, okay, that's interesting how you see me and how you view me. And especially people who are also like me and share those characteristics. 
H: Yeah.

MUSIC

T: So our first article today comes from NPR and it's an analysis piece called Strong Black Woman, Smart Asian Man,  The Downside of Positive Stereotypes.  It's written by Kumari Devarajan. And she starts the article by talking about when she was at school,  her peers assumed that she aced every maths test because she's Asian. And with the other so-called "positive" stereotypes that make her angry and always scrambles to come up with counter examples, but that doesn't explain why it hurts or how it's offensive to say something positive. She's found herself thinking well why wouldn't you want people to think you're good at maths? Which is interesting, isn't it?  Essentially she says that once you buy that there's a connection between characteristic and ability, and  she goes on throughout the article talking particularly about race, it's a slippery slope to bad stereotypes. Aaron Kay is a psychologist at Duke University, and he says that believing any sort of stereotype is based in the deeper belief that we can know things about people based on the group that they belong to.
H: And that's where the danger comes in, isn't it?
T: Yeah, definitely alluded to that in the beginning. He says that there are a lot of positive stereotypes that are also tied to negative ones.
H: Like what you said.
T: Yep. For example, Black people being good at sport and music- ha, there we go- compliments their physical and creative abilities but then it undermines their cognitive abilities or their academic ability. 
H: Yeah, so it was like what you were saying, like "Well thank you for saying I'm good at that but what are you implying that I'm bad at?"
T: Exactly, exactly that. Positive stereotypes affect the way that people view themselves -again yeah, something that I was saying earlier- in terms of not living up to them, and some people can feel like a failure because of that. But even when someone does live up to a stereotype they're often not credited for their effort. And it then further solidifies that stereotype, leaving even less room to be human. So I think that's really interesting actually. Even reading that is a bit of a wound for me, I'll be honest. 
H: Hits a bit deep.
T: It does, because you start doing things to a good level and then that becomes an expectation placed on you always.
H: Yeah. And I think especially if you're good at something and it gets credited to, I don't know, you're good at singing because you're a Black woman, you're like, well actually I worked really hard at this. Yeah. It's not because I was born with any sort of ability because, you know, generally could be wrong, come emerging from the womb like belting a high C. I could be wrong, maybe they do. Maybe they make them differently now!
T: I was quite a special baby actually.

H: But it takes away that kind of  the effort that it takes to get there. 

T: Absolutely it does. Absolutely does and I think that that is then magnified when you start to put compounding factors such as race or gender, well I'll say ethnicity, I don't really like the word race, different episode. I think when you start to put in those compounding factors that can be felt quite deeply and actually then when a child's trying to deal with the psychology behind that there's a bigger question of how's that going to affect them in their later life and how they perform.

H: Yeah.

T: Lewis-McCoy, double barreled surname, a professor of sociology and black studies at City University of New York  develops on this and says that once a stereotype becomes mainstream  we forget how it's formed in the first place.  I think that's really important actually.

H: Yeah. It's a really good point to actually put into words as well.

T: So true.

H: Cause it's one of those things that I think you often kind of notice subliminally. But to actually see it written down, you're like, oh yeah, yeah! Of course that happens!

T: Where did this all start? Where did it all begin? He uses the example of strong Black women. I cannot tell you how triggering this phrase is to me.

H: I'm so sorry.

T: In terms of just, yeah, anyway, I'm sure we'll get into it. Bad, to sum up!

H: Yes.

T: It stems from the fact that many black women have had to overcome obstacles because of racism and sexism. Massive compound.  If you're unfamiliar with the term called misogynoir, which is quite compounding factors that shape someone's experiences. The factors that shaped the strong black woman trope, so things like having limited social resources, being forced to work long hours, fade away once that stereotype is accepted.  And if we assume that all black women are strong without acknowledging those factors, then there's no reason to make the world more equitable and fair for them. Thoughts?
H: I really liked the way that was phrased. I feel like he got a real good mic drop on that last sentence. 

T: It's so true. 

H: Yeah.

T: I think there's some really damaging things that have happened from this idea of the strong Black female stereotype, particularly when you look at medicine.

H: Yes. We've talked about this a little bit before, haven't we?

T:  It's really bleak. It's really grim in that, you know, when you start to look at medical racism and Black women,  particularly when it comes to maternal care,  being more likely to die in childbirth, not receiving the right maternal care, come out of that not receiving good care full stop, accused of  pain medication seeking behaviours,  things like having a higher pain threshold which heralds back to times of the transatlantic slave trade when Black women were forced to have medical experiments done on them. All of this stuff really ties into this extremely dangerous stereotype, I believe, of the strong Black woman so I have a real real issue with it and I've never seen that as a positive stereotype in my opinion.

H: No, and again like the way that you were saying it, to just kind of look at, on the very surface level, the strong Black woman ignores all of those compounding really complex factors that formed that stereotype in the first place. You can't really, in my opinion anyway, you can't use it as a positive if you're not aware of all of the negative that  created it. Because at that point it's just ignorance and you can do it obliviously, you can do it in ignorance, that doesn't mean it's positive. And  yeah, I really liked what  Lewis McCoy was saying in this article, I mean, I was a huge nerd about it and went and looked them all up afterwards because I was like, so interesting. And the bigger study that he did on this topic is definitely worth checking out if you're as nerdy as I am because it's... Again, he's got some just nice phrases that are quite all-encompassing. And yeah, the same with Aaron Kay. The original study that he did that is mentioned in this- because he was basically talking about, in quotes, "positive stereotypes" around African-American people and it's interesting because the positive stereotype within his experiment that he was doing, it was "unlikely to arouse skepticism and emotional vigilance." And it was "more likely to be believed  and also more likely to produce harmful beliefs towards the target group." 

T: Right, okay.

H: So it actually did more damage than the negative stereotype just being said because it was so insidious and because everyone just accepted it unquestioningly. They accepted the surface level of it, whereas I think the positive stereotype that he used in  the study was Black people being good at sports, so that kind of was said but then obviously all of the more subtle connotations of that perpetuated  the negative stereotypes that he offered, which were things like  prone to criminal behavior.  And it was things like, of course they can run fast and therefore.  And so it actually did  much more damage by compounding and subtly endorsing the negative stereotypes. I just thought it was a really, really interesting experiment to do and to offer like a quantitative result to say like "That is worse and you all think it's great."

T: Well yeah, I mean this is kind of the point isn't it? It's like there is no such thing as a positive stereotype. It's just stereotype negative or positive, you know, the perception of it being negative positive is irrelevant, really. It is a stereotype nonetheless, isn't it?

H: Yeah.

T: I also want to say something about children who are Black and Brown and how this, particularly the trope of being a strong Black woman affects Black girls particularly. There's so many studies around the adultification of Black children in particular and this idea that I think it's children that are as young as 10 who were Black girls will often have this trope placed on them. So there's the lack of space, really, for a Black girl to be a Black girl, know,

H: Yeah, already a Black woman.

T: Already trying to push her down this pipeline of you you are a black woman therefore you are strong and you are able to  take the awful experiences that life throws at you because you have to be this-

H: You've got to respond to childhood problems with a maturity that you are not old enough to have. 

T: Don't possess.

H: Yeah.

T: So yeah, think there's a lot of interweaving factors that have to be considered when we're talking about stereotyping and actually how we treat children who are from global majority backgrounds is really key here as part of this conversation, I think.

H: Yeah, I remember reading something as well. I can't remember who said it, I've got a feeling  it was Monroe Bergdorf. I might be wrong with that though, but it was a Black trans woman and she was saying that the idea of that stereotype as well was really hard for her to balance in her mind because with the kind of existing in the world as a Black man, to then be able to kind of equate the strong Black woman stereotype and kind of be like "That's what's expected of me now but I've also got to tread a very fine line between male privilege, as some people would see it,  and not talking over other people and then there was a whole kind of conversation around but I still can take up space as a Black woman and I'm not talking over, in quotations, 'real' Black women. It was it was really interesting and it was it was very much just her reflections on it, but yeah again it was was an interesting thing to see  and put into words and kind of go oh wow those are complicated, you know?

T: It's an impossible narrative to live by. It's ridiculous.  Like I say, I've got a real problem with it because it's been something that's been said to me since a young age  and the idea is that I don't suffer. You know, that's the bottom line. You're not allowed to suffer, don't have space to suffer, you don't suffer. And then it's how that then manifests itself in being able to find the right level of support, or access the right medical care or, you know, just even have conversations where people treat you like a human being.

H: Wild.

T: Wild. So yeah, I think it is one for me that kind of triggers my fight or flight response. So I think it's a really important one to try and pull out in this conversation.

H: Yeah, definitely. In my rabbit hole of hunting through articles, another kind of  phrase that came up  was from someone called Oliver Burkman  and he basically concluded the whole article which I thought was a really nice way of  summing it all up was "The problem with stereotypes isn't only their content, it's the stereotyping."

T: Yeah.

H: Which I think sums up this whole kind of, are they positive, are they negative? Well either way you're making an assumption based on a group of people.

T: Correct.

H: Like that's it. Intention is irrelevant at that point.

T: Yeah, absolutely.

MUSIC

T: Our second article is a summary of a study that actually argues the opposite about positive stereotypes when it comes to age. It's from Yale News and it's called 'Positive Age Stereotypes Improve Recovery Among the Elderly.'  It's pretty old, it's from 2012, but the researcher's more recent work builds on this theory, so it still seems to stand. The lead researcher, Becca Levy, showed that in two groups with differing views around aging, the individuals in the positive age stereotype group were 44% more likely to recover from a severe disability based on ability to be able to bathe, dress,  move from a chair and walk independently. The participants were all at least 70 years old, non-disabled, according to their health plans. So, thoughts on this?

H: This was a really interesting one to read because I was fully expecting to see reams and reams of evidence being like, no they're rubbish, they don't exist, they're bad, they're worse than negative stereotypes. This one really caught me off guard, I was like, "Oh no!"

T: I think the first thing that I would pick out from this though as a point of difference is that these are the perceptions that they have of themselves. 

H: Yes, that was something that I was thinking, especially as the article went on, it seemed a bit more of the power of positive thinking.

T: Yeah, for sure.

H: Rather than like, stereotypes?

T: Yeah, yeah, okay.

H: There's a bit of a difference in there of being able to age with positive things connoted to that.

T: Yeah.
H: as opposed to  not. Like you say, it's something that you think about yourself. I don't know, it feels different. It feels like a different context.

T: It does, doesn't it? 

H: I can't quite put my finger on why.

T: It's almost like it's not necessarily talking about positive stereotypes, but it's trying to buck the idea of the negative stereotype around age.

H: Yeah.

T: I feel like that's what they're, in their minds, trying to do.

H: Yeah. And I think as well, like, there's something around the idea of becoming old is something that can happen to everybody. So it feels different in a way because it's not something that you are? Like, I don't know, someone's ethnicity, even things like gender identity, where the gender identity might be fluid, that's usually still a constant in that it's consistently fluid, you know, like, I don't know, whereas age, you're never gonna be the same age twice, like, it's always moving. It's a very universal thing as well. Other than, you know, kind of cultural ideas of when maturity hits and things like that.

T: Sure.

H: The idea that, you know, at the upper limit, that's old age, at the lower limit, that's childhood. It's very universal, so it feels, in terms of stereotyping, it feels less like you're stereotyping a person or a group of people, and more, well actually this is something we're all capable of. I don't know, it's a hard one to put into words.

T: It's abstract, isn't it? It's the idea of...

H: Yeah, it's not tangible at all, it?

T: It's not tangible, is it? And you would hope that we all share a very similar view of what age looks like and how it can affect you at different points in your life. I think that's the point is this - it's almost like you say it's more of a universal experience isn't it rather than a sub-sect of society that's only going to experience this characteristic  and have a lived experience of it. We all have a lived experience of age because we are all going through it, yeah.

H: Yeah

T: Well let's see what else is in the study I guess. As of 2012, the association between positive age stereotypes and recovery from disability hadn't been studied. Which I find...

H: That's wild, isn't it?

T: Odd. Very odd. These studies, and subsequent studies, suggest that promoting age positive stereotypes, or positive age stereotypes, could extend independent living in later life. She said that the results suggest that how the old view their aging process could have an effect on how they experience it. In previous studies, we have found that older individuals with positive age stereotypes tend to show lower cardiovascular response to stress, and they tend to engage in healthier activities, which may help to explain our current findings. So it's almost like they're saying, just because I'm aging and getting old, that doesn't mean I have to live  in this place where I stop. 

H:Yeah, yeah.

T: Essentially. Which, is it a positive stereotype, or?

H: It feels a bit more like the power of positive thinking.

T: Yeah, I think so.

H: Which isn't a bad thing, it just doesn't feel like it's... I question the labeling of it a little bit. 

T: Yes. Yeah I think so.

H: Still a good study, still very interesting.

T: Yes, of course. 

H: But I wonder how it fits into positive stereotypes.

T: Yeah, wonder if Becca Levy's vision was more akin to that positive thinking like you say rather than positive stereotypes. I think, and I mean obviously please go and read the article in your own time listeners, but I'm sure there's something that's said in there by Levy that starts to break down what the negative stereotypes that some of these participants in this study might have had around age. Like, you know, you get to X age and you are not able to do X, Y and Z. 

H: Yeah, well some of the things that were labeled kind of positive stereotypes, negative stereotypes, were things like the phrase like life begins at 40. So that would be viewed as a positive age stereotype because it's not seeing everything after, well these people are 70 plus, so it wasn't seeing anything after that being write-off essentially, so it was kind of, yeah what you said the idea of life not stopping. I think there were assumptions as well around the negative stereotypes of, you just go into a home and that's it. You lose your independence, kind of lose the ability to have fun and do what you want and things like that. So it was, they were very much stereotypes. And I guess the connotations of words? So they did - I think it was part of finding out what were positive and negative stereotypes - it was think of some words that you associate with being older and we'll sort them into positive and negative so it was things like obviously-

T: Wise.

H: Wise, that's what I was going to say! Experienced would kind of go into more the positive side of things whereas that loss of independence, yeah, they kind of go into negatives. So, yeah, it was an interesting conversation.
T: So to conclude with this article then, it says in 2022, Levy actually published a book called Breaking the Age Code, How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live, to draw together her research and pull together a blueprint to reduce structural ageism. Interesting.

H: It looked very interesting. I'm going to try and find it.

T: I do - I am really enjoying the discourse that I'm seeing at the moment of anti-aging versus aging well.

H: Yeah. 

T: I'm really enjoying that and, well, I think there's a certain amount of brain rot that goes with anti-aging isn't there. And I think we seem to be going on this slippery slope where people hit 30 and they're basically dust. Strange, really, really odd. So I think trying to change that narrative that seems to be trying to creep forward around the idea of aging well. 

H: Yes.

T: Is really good. Because it gives people a much clearer idea of what the future holds for them I think rather than just trying to claw back the years desperately with anti wrinkle cream.

H: Yeah, well literally gonna say like I'm gonna steal your buzzword for these now: it's capitalism! So much easier to sell anti-aging cream than it is to say just do nothing.

T: Yeah, of course.

H: Accept the fact that it happens.

T: Exactly that. But  I do need to tell people, everyone should be wearing SPF every day. 

H: Oh yeah that's just sensible. Please wear something green.

T: Exactly.  But yeah, there is a big comparison between, like you say, the capitalist approach of anti-aging versus aging well. Move your body, experience life, build connections, enjoy your community. All of these things that actually you were doing way before someone told you that you were getting old apparently and then the narrative starts to shift and then those negative stereotypes start to creep in. You know, we're not doing that. Let's really focus on the idea of ageing well and it seems like Levy's really wanted to pull that out obviously with the book that she's written.

H: I'm really interested to actually see- I might try to find that book because I like that she links these stereotypes to the idea of something being incredibly structural and I think... I think I'm right in saying that she's looking at this particularly from, I think it was the UK? 

T:Okay.

H: It might have been the US, there was a U in it! So it's all quite relevant, it's stuff that I know and experience so yeah I'm interested to see what her kind of theories are for challenging this on a bigger scale as well rather than just kind of change your mindset, which can sometimes feels a little bit weak, but I feel like this has actually got something substantial behind it. So I'll be interested  to read more.  Great.

MUSIC

T: So we've got one question that's come in today and it is, what's your top tip for challenging your own stereotypes?

H: I like this one because we've done a lot of focus on kind of how to challenge other people and stuff and I like that the focus on this one is like stereotypes about yourself that you might have. So I think they're the ones that go under the radar a lot as well.

T: All the time.

H: And you kind of catch yourself thinking them and you go, wait that's a load of rubbish, what am I on about?

T: Yeah absolutely.
H: This is definitely a less serious answer, someone said it to me once, whenever you've got like negative, it was to do with like just negative thoughts generally but I think they apply to stereotypes is kind of treating them like a like an annoying teenager and kind of being like "Yeah okay shut up" and I just really like that I think it's a very effective way of managing stereotypes, of being like "Yeah come on sort yourself out"

T: Yeah absolutely. Not giving it power, essentially.

H: Yeah, exactly. Kind of,  yeah, devaluing it. 

T: Yes.

H: Yeah, like, I guess dismissing it, but kind of going, "Well, that's an unfounded thought. No, thank you, Henry. Moving on."

T: I  think the identity crisis that I've been through in my life has been  a series of me  saying "You are not that person, that's not who you are, why do you think that?" I'm probably asking myself why a lot of the time and where that's come from and what's triggered that. And I think this idea of how people view Black women has been something that I've carried my entire life as you would expect as a Black woman. And I think there's been several points in my life where I've had to do a lot of self-reflection to think about what do I stand for? What do I believe in? Who am I? And what are the bits that I've carried with me  based on people's stereotypes, perceptions of me, based on the  environmental factors that you experience?  And I think, not to come at people with the therapy speak, but finding your inner peace is really important when it comes to  challenging stereotypes that you might have about yourself or  general negative thoughts like you say and I do think that going on that journey to find your inner peace is really important and  I'm not saying I've got it all figured out but I certainly feel a lot better than I did  10 years ago for example when you're trying to navigate a very different point in your life.

H: Yeah and I think that idea of asking, it's just questioning yourself isn't it? See yourself down in front of a lamp and interrogate.

T: Absolutely.

H: But I think things like who wants me to be like that.

T: Yes.

H: And I think those, for me anyway, and like you said, I like I've gone through many identity crises so I'm probably a bit more fluent in this language of going, what are you talking about Henry? But yeah, that kind of like, who wants me to be like that? Yeah. Like that assumption that I should be this,  is that coming from me? Is that something I want or is it something that I think people want of me?

T: Yes.

H: And I think working that out is really helpful because you can then either choose to go, right okay well actually I do want to be that person in which case it becomes less a stereotype enforced on you and more the person you are and it kind of goes back to the first article with it blocks out that fear of failure because you're claiming it and it's not because you are X,Y, or Z protected characteristic or type of person it's because you're you.

T: Yes. 

H: Question everything.

T: Question everything absolutely. Interrogate yourself. Find your inner peace is our advice.

H: Just become whole as a person. Super easy. Five minute job. You're welcome. 

T: Oh if only!

MUSIC

T: Thank you for joining us for this episode of D&I Digest. I think it's been  a conversation that's probably needed to happen for a while actually around sort of positive stereotypes because it's not something we've touched on before in any way really, have we?

H: No. It's nice to be able to go, yeah, positive stereotypes, let's have whole conversation about them, they don't exist. Job done.

T: Now that is more common. We've done that before.  But yeah, think  it's  something that probably flies under the radar for a lot of people and I'm glad that we got to kind of crack it open if you like and look at what's underneath and  do a bit of digging.

H: Yeah.

T: Remember that you can follow us on our website and social media and we hope you come back and listen in next month so it's bye from me.

H: And it's bye from me.

Both: Bye!