6 Terrible Stereotypes (That Came From Positive Things)

But everything started to change for lady brewers in the 1300s. Men suddenly decided that they wanted in on the rising alcohol market, which meant women had to move their asses out of the way. And when they refused? Well, there was a certain medieval saying about smart, strong-headed women: witch! She's a witch! Burn the witch!

Suddenly, now that it suited the men, the tall hat became the witch's evil uniform, and the barley-protecting cat a "familiar" given to her by Satan. And the broomstick? She obviously rode it to go to her secret devil meetings. And that boiling brew wasn't beer anymore, but some sort of evil drink that would make you go all weird -- you know, unlike beer. By the 14th century, people had been poisoned (ironically) against the idea of female homebrewers, right in time for large-scale breweries to take over. And so today, super annoying guys will make sure you know all about their latest microbrew, not realizing their shitty hobby got women burned at the stake.

So far, so depressingly normal, right? However, at the same time, these UK gals were drawing the ire of American suffragettes. These proto-feminists had a difficult tightrope to walk. On the one hand, the burlesque performers were owning their sexuality and succeeding at a job in public. On the other, they were openly mocking the suffragist movement -- among many other things, like Shakespeare, fashion, and marriage. In the end, many decided to speak out against the blonde British beauties, enabling another stereotype: that of the sour-faced suffragette who can't take a bloody joke.

One in particular, Olive Logan, simply couldn't let it go, even denouncing the women in front of Susan B. Anthony, who had more important shit to deal with than throwing shade. Logan talked at length about how these blondes were a detriment to the gender, as they had nothing to offer intellectually or talent-wise, and people only went to see them for their bodies. Soon they were being put down with the insult "British Blondes," which we're sure we've seen printed on a Maxim cover somewhere.

Eventually, this slang wasn't used to refer to just the burlesque dancers anymore, but to any woman who was famous for her looks, the so-called "professional beauties." "British Blondes" transformed into "dizzy blondes," which is an old-timey term for hella dumb, and so we arrive at the quaint insult still used to this day. It certainly is tragic that Susan B. Anthony, who fought her entire life for equality, could have nipped one of the most damaging female stereotypes in the bud by telling her friend to chill for a second.

But after World War II, a new food fad hit the entirety of the U.S.: donut shops. And because donut shops essentially operate like bakeries, they open crazy early. Suddenly cops had a one-stop shop to grab food and coffee on the go, keeping them fed and alert as they roved the streets. And it was cheap too, so even when other options became available, they stayed loyal to the hole.

Of course, donut shops loved the fact that cops would hang out at their venues -- especially before dawn, when the drug fiends are at their most feral. Dunkin' Donuts founder William Rosenberg claimed in his autobiography that he actively made his shops the kind of places officers wanted to hang out for a while.

The final one said "P-towny," which supposedly stood for "Provincetown" and not the other favorite p-word.

By 2000, when we all started to relax a bit more, Subaru decided to go all in, gay-wise. They hired ex-tennis-player and famous lesbian Martina Navratilova as their spokesperson. As dog whistles go, it perked all the ears in the country. And it worked! 12 months later, and Subaru had its best-ever sales year. The lesbian gamble had paid off in spades. (Lesbians like gardening, right?)

She was the fruit-wearing, banjo-strumming, happy-go-lucky Latina who managed to get people crazy about bananas. And despite her best intentions, a new Hispanic stereotype was born, one of the constantly happy, guitar-playing, singing, samba-dancing dummy.

According to one writer for The Washington Post in 1942, the new movies made it seem like it was always Carnival and everyone dressed like Carmen Miranda with skimpy costumes and fruit on their heads. You can see why this didn't go over so well with people who lived there, those hard workers who were mostly non-fruit-covered.

Miranda's influence can still be felt today, when you see someone like Sophia Vergara. Now the highest-paid woman on television, her "act" is the happy Latina -- she even dyed her blonde hair brown to conform to the dark and pretty stereotype. A stereotype that trumps other stereotypes. Ay, caramba.

The exact same happened to Vietnamese. During the Vietnam War, Hollywood royalty Tippi Hedren (of The Birds fame) noticed two phenomena: 1) Many Vietnamese women fleeing their homeland were stuck in refugee camps with no way to earn money, and 2) Getting your nails done cost a lot of money. Hedren decided to kill two issues with one stone and flew in her own manicurist to teach Vietnamese the trade and give the free market of nails a shot in the arm. Soon, business was booming. These days, 51 percent of all manicurists (80 percent in California) come from Vietnamese backgrounds. But while Hedren is celebrated as both a great actress and the godmother of the nail industry, Vietnamese women just get stereotyped to hell.

Of course, America didn't invent occupational racism. For that, you have to look to the treatment of Jews in medieval Europe. They were forbidden from doing or owning almost anything, but one area that was open to them was banking. Christians were forbidden from charging interest because of something Jesus had once said in the Bible, so they weren't that keen on the whole banking nonsense. However, Jews had no such restrictions, so European nations used this religious loophole to get their financial infrastructures off the ground. Finally, Jews had a decent career prospect, and all that was asked for in return was for them to live in ghettos and wear a badge or hat so that you could tell who they were at first glance -- a deal that really didn't work out in their favor.

Unfortunately, like bankers today, Jews didn't make themselves popular by charging people interest, and soon the stereotype sprung up that Jews were greedy and money-hungry. So you force outsiders into a profession and then hate them for doing that profession correctly? Stop being such a Christian stereotype.

Screw it, be a witch. Brew some beer at home. Here's a good read on how to get started.

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For more, check out 5 Gender Stereotypes That Used To Be the Exact Opposite and 6 Absurd Gender Stereotypes That Science Says Are True.

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