When even the teacher claimed men were better drivers, I asked her why it is then that young men have the priciest insurance? She said it was because they're very aggressive on the road (that doesn't sound like good driving to me).

That actually made me laugh out loud.

I'm disappointed that your teacher was claiming that men are better drivers - I was thinking that that was such a good discussion topic to get people thinking outside the box! But if she was perpetuating the stereotypes, it doesn't sound like she was the proper one to be teaching the class. How did the discussion progress by the end of the class? Did anyone leave thinking differently or recognizing these questions as false binaries?

What was the point of your teacher asking these questions if she was just using it as a way to voice her own stereotypes?

I could see if she wanted to let everyone voice their opinions and then she turned it around and said "Ha! You're ALL wrong. No one class or group or race or gender is bitchier or smarter or better drivers than any other. These are all harmful stereotypes..." and then went on to teach about such harmful stereotypes and how they affect people and society.

But otherwise...WTF was her objective here?

Wow, that's really upsetting. I expected that the teacher was asking the questions because she wanted to eliminate the students' prejudices, but the fact that she was agreeing with them is pretty awful!

I wish I could tell you why one sex has to be this and one race has to be that, etc. I went through this phase in 6th grade of buying into all that "Battle of the Sexes" bullshit, and I realized later that it was because people were confused about why I didn't dress girly, so it made me feel more like a member of the female sex to agree with stereotypes, just so I could be all, "Ha, it's true, we girls really are like that!" It embarrassed me when people told me I didn't act or look like a girl, so I just wanted desperately to be in on all the "boys vs. girls" jokes because it made me feel like I was on the girls' side and part of their group. So based on that experience of mine (though short-lived, thank God), I would hazard a guess that one reason people cling to stereotypes is because it makes them feel like they're part of a group, which in turn makes them feel secure in their identity. Still, talk about a shitty way to be sure of yourself. I guess the words "unique" and "free-thinking" are scary to some people.

Is it possible that the teacher wasn't agreeing that the stereotypes are true, but just that they are the dominant stereotypes? A TA recently did a similar exercise in one of my classes, where we were asked to decide which races (out of black, white and Asian) were seen as more feminine and which ones were seen as masculine. It's easy to get confused between "This is true" and "This is generally seen to be true," or even use the former as a kind of shorthand for the latter. Or there's the technique where you agree with the stereotypes that float up ("Right, Asian men are more feminine") and then once they're all on the board you say "We THINK this as a society because..." Did that happen at all in your class?

This was an Asian American studies class, so I think most people started out knowing that these stereotypes are silly, but I still left the class slightly worried that someone might have thought he meant that Asian men really WERE more feminine.

Wow. What school do you go to? If a professor did that here (not the questions, but insisting themselves that the stereotypes were true) they would immediately be reported, and likely written up by the department head for racial and sexual discrimination in education.

In fact, my Psychology professor did the first one-- about men or women being better drivers. A lot of kids, of course, replied that men were better. He then retorted with the statistics than male drivers are 77% more likely to die in a car accident (corrected for the amount of driving they do) than women. Crushed any assumptions, and then pointed out the bit about insurance. Very effective at challenging our preconceived notions (which was his point, he wasn't trying to make a gender stereotype argument-- he just wanted to show that society warps how we perceive reality).

Please go to your next class and bring this up again, citing this time the US road risk traffic analysis authored by Paul Fischbeck and David Gerard of Carnegie Mellon University that discovered the 77% statistic. While the others are subjective and harder to prove (after all, one person's "bitchy" is another's "assertive"), this one is easy and simple, because the work's already been done that clearly indicates that on average female drivers are safer, better drivers. It might make your classmates reconsider their preconceptions-- and it will teach them that your teacher does NOT know what he or she is talking about.

And even if elsmith7 is right, and the teacher knows full well they are just stereotypes, if you're confused about it, then chances are the class was simply reinforcing them and the lesson failed. So reporting the statistics will help clarify the lesson in a way that you and your classmates can actually understand.

What class is this? Reinforcing power dynamics and stereotypes you already know 101?

I remember this exercise being done as an introductory activity when I was in a Sociology class.

Stereotypes exist, in my opinion, specifically because if you can hang a label on someone you don't have to take the time to really get to know them individually. If I can judge someone up front, I don't have to do any more brain work. Prejudice = pre-judge.

What the fuck? This is HORRIBLE teaching. I cannot even comprehend of a professor at my school being able to get away with saying things like that- black women are bitchier? Seriously? How can your teacher get away with enforcing racist and sexist beliefs?

As to the question of women and men and driving, I think a lot of women say women are worse drivers because they grow up their whole lives hearing it (everywhere) and they internalise it, which is sad. I used to think it as well (as a young teenager, before my feminist awakening), then I learned to drive and realised I was good at it and was not even slightly handicapped by my gender. I've never been in an accident or anything, whereas about 90% of all the men in my life (both my age and older) have been in MULTIPLE accidents... I have male friends that are on their 4th or 5th cars (they have been driving the same amount of time as me, I'm still on my first car)... So this is all anecdotal but I can't see why, factually speaking, women continue to buy into the idea. It's frustrating.

If I were you I would lodge a formal complaint against the teacher for all this crap. She could get in a lot of trouble for it. Unless she later on showed everyone how stupid their stereotypes are, I don't see the point of the exercise.

I'm still shocked that she is able to get away with this, honestly...

What The Fuck is this class?

I hope there is someone that you can file a complaint to.

This racism and misogyny masked as cultural learning makes me sick.

When I first started reading your post, I was under the impression that it was an exercise to get you to analyze underlying cultural stereotypes. But the teacher agreed with those stereotypes?! In any class that is beyond inappropriate and in my opinion encouraging discriminatory views in students is worthy of termination. But then I re-read the post and I see that the intention of the class is to analyze cultural ideas and assumptions... So the teacher is actually acting counter to the intent of the class? PLEASE file some sort of complaint.

In a govt study during Jimmy Carters presidency, it was proven that women react faster and tend to have loud children in the car with them more often. There were many differences in the way men and women drive, variations in depth percepton, reaction times and etc.
Overall, it proved that women should pay less insurance.

This was just around the time the seat belt laws came in- Jimmy carters doing.

How do I know this you ask?
I researched it after a sexist comment was made and supported by my family members at a holiday (extended family too) dinner.
by the next holiday, I was armed by stats.

Thank you Jimmy Carter!

wow i have no idea where to begin.

1. what does "bitchy" mean?
2. what does "good" or "bad" driving mean?
3. "smarter" in what way?
4. and since we're having so much fun, what does "black" or "white" mean? for example, malia obama's grandmother is white but her grandfather is Kenyan so would she be black or white or part black and part white for the purposes of this discussion?

because you got great stats about driving, i'll give you one about intelligence:

In a 2008 study paid for by the National Science Foundation in the United States, researchers found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests. However, the study indicated that, while on average boys and girls performed similarly, boys were overrepresented among the very best performers as well as among the very worst.

I will admit within my own family that the women are the worst drivers. I think that had to deal with the fact my grandfather likely wasn't helping my aunts and my mom as much because they were girls (if this lets you know anything, my grandfather never let my grandmother drive). We're expected to be bad drivers, so we are never given proper instruction.

Work at a Wal-Mart that has a grocery that's in an area that has a pretty good population where a minority isn't rare. Better yet, work there the first weekend of the month. People will learn it's both sexes and all races that can extremely bitchy and nasty.

I can't find the study at this time, but I did fine one where it showed girls did better in classes when taken away from the boys. I remember it had something to do with how the teachers perceived the boys when in class next the girls. So this might solve the "Boys are smarter than girls" problem. It's the same with the driving, we aren't expected to excel so we are not given the chance to.

Kill the Messenger , Chris Rock, will blow your mind.
Have you seen it? Is it OK to perpetuate the stereotype if it's funny?

What's your take?

I thought this story was going to end with the teacher pointing out how everyone should stop stereotyping each other. Who would even bring up a question like "Who is bitchier, black women or white women?"

I will always say time and again, what is called reckless in women is called aggressive in men. I once got a ride home from a friend who decided he'd race his brother's car all the way there on the narrow, icy streets while I was 3 months pregnant. I call it incredibly bad driving but at the time all the guys found it cool. I don't stereotype men for their driving but I also see how it's perceived as a talent when they do dumb shit in cars.