Judgments’ Eye

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Despite the immense popularity of the saying, this continues to go on constantly around us. More often than not, we don’t even notice when we do it. There are many different ways that people falsely link some physical characteristics with everyday personality and behavior. Some examples of these many physical characteristics are: what we choose to wear, our hereditary genes, and even our race.

            Undoubtedly, the woman portrayed in “My Body is My Own Business” is a victim of stereotyping due to people linking her clothes with what they see in the media. She states near the beginning that many people see her as an oppressed female. This stereotyping is mainly caused by many popular movies along with the ever present fashion industry. We are continuously looking at others on the basis of not who we are, but what we own and our outwards appearance. By the woman wearing her hijab (robe like garment), while some may still judge her on wearing it, people can no longer make assumptions about her character by “the length of her skirt”. The woman also speaks about the idea that sex sells, and indeed it does; we see this with everything from cars to magazines to beer. Another thing that she brings up is how some 13-year-old girls are sticking their fingers down their throats to be (in fashion’s eye) beautiful. On the contrary, while she covers her body, she feels released from “the bondage of female exploitations” as no longer can people see how outwardly beautiful she is. Hence, what a person wears is an obvious way the some people fallaciously link physical characteristics with personality or behavior.

            Furthermore, another manner of wrongly linking physical characteristics such as hereditary genes with behavior is demonstrated in “I’m Not My Brother; I’m Me”. Jonathan is in high school and tells us multiple stories of when teachers expected him to be just like his older brothers. One Jonathan’s first day of chemistry class, Mr. Swenson (his teacher) took him aside and told him that if he caught Jonathan merely looking at a Bunsen burner, he would be scraping gum off library tables. At the time, Jonathan didn’t even know what a Bunsen burner was, much less that his brother Mark had set of some minor explosions in the lab. A while later at a school dance, the chaperones kept a very close watch on him, expecting Jonathan to pull some prank, once again, just like his brother Mark had. Jonathan was also constantly being compared to his other brother Steve. An example of this is when Jonathan decided to try out for the school basketball team. When he didn’t make it in the end, the coach was very disappointed because Steve had been very good while Jonathan, on the contrary, was not. During geometry, Jonathan tried very hard, yet was still sub-par. However, when he stayed after school to get extra help, all he got was a lecture about how Steve always got straight A’s and the teacher expected him to do the same. Thus, it is shown that not even linking genes with personality or behavior is a safe way of assuming things.