by Jeniffer Delicor
We can define culture as a tool used by people to express their several collective identities, or the identity of a group, it is their values, morals, goals, knowledge, beliefs, art and behavior. So, it is, basically, every other custom of our society. But those “cultural ways” that we express can be used to oversimplify an image of us, our identity as an individual or as a community, creating stereotypes. What we perceive about other cultures is what we have been conditioned by our own culture, the way it values those behaviors. These thoughts and beliefs may not accurately reflect their reality.
Brazil is a good example of how stereotypes work. Exchange students from Asia and Europe, when asked about us, answer pretty much the same things: that Brazilians are friendly, warming, informal and funny, reducing a whole society’s behavior to how they act at parties during Carnaval. When asked a more specific question, like how they view Brazilian women, their answer was the image of “the girl of Ipanema” — sexy, easygoing, beautiful, just an object of conquest in the male imaginary or uneducated, limited to a social role inferior to men, like a housewife or a stay home mother, or maybe a school teacher. All of these images are inaccurate, and their diffusion is harmful to our self-esteem and social development.
After studying different cultures and the ways in which we can be represented, I learned to see people beyond the stereotypes of their gender, race, ethnicity or nation, and not limited by it. I learned that it is difficult to deconstruct my own prejudices, but it is necessary to do so. Also, my image of Brazil needs to be less reduced, because if doing so, I will be able to experience a country culturally rich and diverse every day. Being able to meet foreigners this semester and find out how they see the world made me realize that, besides the differences and traditions, we are not so different after all. I share a lot with the Chinese girls, the oppression of our societies against women and or will to overcome it is the same. So why not enjoy what we can learn with each other’s experiences to enrich our repertoire of knowledge to build a more tolerant and egalitarian world.
We can define culture as a tool used by people to express their several collective identities, or the identity of a group, it is their values, morals, goals, knowledge, beliefs, art and behavior. So, it is, basically, every other custom of our society. But those “cultural ways” that we express can be used to oversimplify an image of us, our identity as an individual or as a community, creating stereotypes. What we perceive about other cultures is what we have been conditioned by our own culture, the way it values those behaviors. These thoughts and beliefs may not accurately reflect their reality.
Brazil is a good example of how stereotypes work. Exchange students from Asia and Europe, when asked about us, answer pretty much the same things: that Brazilians are friendly, warming, informal and funny, reducing a whole society’s behavior to how they act at parties during Carnaval. When asked a more specific question, like how they view Brazilian women, their answer was the image of “the girl of Ipanema” — sexy, easygoing, beautiful, just an object of conquest in the male imaginary or uneducated, limited to a social role inferior to men, like a housewife or a stay home mother, or maybe a school teacher. All of these images are inaccurate, and their diffusion is harmful to our self-esteem and social development.
After studying different cultures and the ways in which we can be represented, I learned to see people beyond the stereotypes of their gender, race, ethnicity or nation, and not limited by it. I learned that it is difficult to deconstruct my own prejudices, but it is necessary to do so. Also, my image of Brazil needs to be less reduced, because if doing so, I will be able to experience a country culturally rich and diverse every day. Being able to meet foreigners this semester and find out how they see the world made me realize that, besides the differences and traditions, we are not so different after all. I share a lot with the Chinese girls, the oppression of our societies against women and or will to overcome it is the same. So why not enjoy what we can learn with each other’s experiences to enrich our repertoire of knowledge to build a more tolerant and egalitarian world.