Hello, everyone.
Welcome to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learner's featured post. Stereotype is something we all have to deal with; no matter how hard you try, at some point in your life you have been stereotyped for something, sometimes something good and sometimes something bad. In most cases when it is bad, you try to fight back and correct the narrative, but sometimes fighting back seems futile because no matter how hard you try to correct the narrative, you come to realize that the stereotype is deep-rooted in the hearts and brains of those who believe in it and not a belief you can just change in the blink of an eye.
Stereotype, in a layman's terms, is simply an assumption based on one's appearance, gender, or behavior; it can even be an assumption based on stories that have been told from the times of old, but people still carry them and believe in them. Some stereotypes are bad and harmful to the person at the receiving end; there are stereotypes that can stand in the way of one's success, thereby limiting what they can achieve and the access they are granted.
There are some stereotypes about ourselves that we have been forced to accept as we tried fighting back, and then we lost the battle and realized that it is not a battle we can win. Some of these stereotypes are bad, but for the fact that those who believe in them don't want to believe otherwise, they force us to bow, as fighting back or trying to get them to believe otherwise only hurts us or annoys us. There are quite a few stereotypes about myself that I have accepted, though whenever a new person says it or talks about it, it hurts, but I have accepted it, so I just smile and let them believe what they want.
One of the many stereotypes about myself I have been forced to live with is being called a smoker all because I have dark lips, but having very dark lips is a trait in my mother's family, and I happen to take after her. From my high school, I have always been accused of being a smoker. Once a teacher had to punish me because I had gone rogue at a young age, and why would I start smoking at such a tender age? I was crying and telling him I don't smoke, but he had what he called evidence, so there was nothing else I could say that would change things.
Even here in college, I have been to the department to get my papers signed countless times, and the women in the office will decline signing or accepting my paper until I accept that I have dark lips because I smoke and not because I inherited it from my mom. This is something I have had to deal with since I was young, and now I have just learned to live with it and not try to get people to believe me anymore.
Image used is mine.
To date, I still have my dark lips, and anywhere I enter and a few people get comfortable with me, the first thing they say to me or ask me is if I smoke, and some don't even wait for me to respond before they add advice to the question asked: "If you do, try to regulate it, as it is bad for your health and causing you to have very dark lips." I have learned to live with it and not go about trying to get people to believe that I don't because it all ends the same way, as they find it difficult to believe that I have dark lips but don't smoke, so now when a new person says it, I just smile, and sometimes I try to tell them it is an inherited trait, and the moment they try to argue, I just move on and let them believe what they want.