Controlling other people: The impact of power on stereotyping

Issues of power and stereotyping haunt our history and our present as human beings. Without stereotypes, there would be less need to hate, exclude, exterminate. For good reasons, people object to being stereotyped, categorized, and attributed certain characteristics in common. People do not want to be stereotyped because it limits their freedom and constrains their outcomes, even their lives. In short, stereotypes exert control. Obviously, stereotypes exert control through prejudice and discrimination. Victims of stereotyping know this and rightly resist stereotypes for those reasons. I want to go beyond these fundamental truths and argue that stereotypes are controlling by their very nature and all too easily result from power, from asymmetries in control.