All Women Are Bad Drivers

Stereotyping is an idea or image about members of a particular group. They are often used in a negative sense and problem comes in when they are used as a virtual indicator of certain cultural groups. Sometimes these ideas become so popular and misleading that they change the assumption about the group into a reality. These stereotypes can be based on certain background, social order, religion, nationality, and even gender. People stereotype due to many reasons. Some do it for fun, others do it to explain something about what they saw or heard, while some do it out of innocence or ignorance. In the essay by Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria, the young man called the lady Maria but he did it out of the innocence. Although he didnt mean any harm, the Puerto Rican girl resented the stereotype.

People think that all women are bad drivers and never trust their driving. They feel that women dont read properly and hence they dont follow the rules. Most of the time they cannot park the car properly. Every time they see the traffic jam or an accident they assume that it must be women who caused an accident or traffic jam. There is an impression about women that they are only interested in the color of the car and they dont have a basic knowledge of a cars mechanism. A lot of people think that women are lazy and so they are not regular in their car servicing and due to that reason accidents may occur. There is also a stereotype that women do their makeup while driving car.

For every story you hear about women driving badly, there is always an incidence which comes to mind where you have seen a male driver in a similar situation. For example, if you ever get stuck in traffic, and if you looked at a car to your left, you might see a woman putting eye liner but if you looked at the right, you might also see a man reading sports illustrated or a newspaper. You even see many boys skateboarding and cycling which also create a threat to traffic. Moreover, you find many kids crossing the road at the wrong time which would also cause an accident. Both of them are equally irresponsible but somehow its women who take all the blame.

Women are not known to be aggressive drivers. You never see a woman enraged because a male driver just overtook her. But you always see a male driver looking back onto a slower car he is overtaking to find out if it is a female driver and almost running a cyclist or a pedestrian over in front. A very good example is the insurance rate. If women were really bad drivers, you would expect premiums for female drivers to be more than male drivers. Most of the time, women drive with a purpose, be it picking up the kids or grocery shopping. They are hardly competitive drivers. And how often do we hear of women involved in drag-racing? Almost never. Moreover this there is no gene scientifically found that proves that women are bad drivers.

Thus, stereotyping is just knowledge or an experience of other people based on incomplete information. People should not get carried away by hearsay. There are always exceptions so it is not fair to label an entire group. We should also be careful not to publicize such conduct because it could hurt someone even if we do out of innocence or for fun.