I am not a person – I am a long list of assumptions.
I went to a Catholic high school with the reputation of being the school of the preppy, rich snobs. That label was stuck on me. I live in Kansas, so assume away about the yellow brick roads and little farms we all live on. I was involved in theatre in high school and that’s how drama queen was added to the list. I wanted to do well in school so throw nerd into the mix. Don’t forget the fact that I’m a girl, which comes with its own long list of stereotypes: I’m emotional, gossipy, and can be entranced by chocolate and fashion.
Yikes, this list escalated quickly.
My senior year high school yearbook even caught on to these clichés
But all it took was five little words. Just whispered ever so softly as I walked by.
“She’s such a dumb blonde.”
Being blonde, I’ve heard it before – it comes as a package deal with the hair. The dumb blonde jokes, the light teasing when you do something, well, dumb, but this time it was different. I had just read my essay for Notre Dame for my college essay class and while walking back to my seat I heard one of my friends, who later I would argue was ever really a friend at all, lean over to whisper to the girl next to her, “She’s such a dumb blonde. She’s stupid to think she’ll ever get into a college like that.”
You’ll always have your critics in life, if you so choose to listen to them. My reaction was pretty calm: 1) I brushed it off like the resilient Elle Woods that I am, 2) momentarily paused to gloat – proved her wrong, didn’t I? and 3) I’m not too beat up about it because I’m in pretty good company:
But still, after that I would find myself thinking whenever I did something “smart,” did I finally prove them wrong? I didn’t realize that I had nothing to prove to them to begin with.
Stereotypes are unavoidable when we live in such a judgmental society, but they can be weapons of mass destruction. Some are brick walls we were born with, others are thrown at us for the choices we make. I’m addressing stereotypes because ever since I have committed to Notre Dame, all I have learned about the school has its own stereotypes, the majority of them being negative.
Those majors are socially awkward. That Hall is full of jersey-chasing, daddy’s girls. St. Mary’s girls are ditzy ND wannabes who get all the perks without the work.
I haven’t spent a single day on campus as an actual Notre Dame student yet and already I’ve made assumptions about certain dorms and groups, and for some unexplainable reason, feel this strong pressure to hate Smick Chicks.
These reputations are just that, reputations, and nothing more. They are labels that are slapped onto a group of people. They shouldn’t be what defines the person.
Like my mom, a St. Mary’s alum, would say, “When you assume, you make an a** out of you and me.”
The problem is that stereotypes aren’t just little generalizations you can throw around and at worst bruise someone’s ego temporarily. It’s been proven in countless psychology experiments that people perform worse when they are aware they are being stereotyped. Those subjected to the ridicule feel inadequate and the feeling remains with them for years.
When you know the odds are against you, you have to overcome the additional obstacle of disproving the stereotype.
Stereotypes also take away individuality. By using a generalization, you ignore the individual and clump him or her into a group. These assumptions are not only inaccurate, but they are also incomplete. Basically, what you are judging a person on is only skin-deep.
Out of all the stereotypes, the reputation Notre Dame girls throw at their neighboring sisters at St. Mary’s is honestly the worst of the worst. When incoming Notre Dame freshmen are already accustomed to hateful sayings such as “hit the smicks, marry the domers,” we’re setting up St. Mary’s girls for a loss before we even meet them. Not only do we love Notre Dame, but an entirely different college wants to celebrate what makes Notre Dame great with us! That’s something to embrace, not hate. I’ll cut this rant short, but Katrina Linden’s article In Defense of Smick Chicks sums it up perfectly. I was raised by a Smick Chick and can say she is the hardest working, intelligent woman I know, and the reputation her school has picked up is nothing but insulting to a proud alum.
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not naïve. Stereotypes will always be around, but if anything, when you hear them, realize more often than not, they’re superficial. Trust your own judgment before consulting someone else’s typically ill-informed opinions. And for all of us battling with the labels others assigned us, my Pinterest advice to you is this:
So, this is my promise. Come the weekend of Frosh-O, when I meet you and you tell me your major, your hall, your interests, etc, I will not go through my mental files to remember what I should think about based on what I’ve heard, but instead on who is standing right there in front of me. Hope you do the same to the preppy, nerdy, dramatic, blonde girl in front of you!
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Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (provided by author)