“Cats are friendlier than dogs”: cultural stereotypes and how to break them

I was teaching about comparisons in class last week with about twenty-five tenth grade boys. I wrote three words on the board: cats, dogs, friendly. Which one is friendlier?  I asked them.

“Cats!” the entire class shouted back.

“Are you sure?” I ask again.

“Yes! Yes! Cats!”

“Nobody thinks dogs are friendlier?”

“No!”

I can barely imagine one student in America, let alone twenty-five, insisting that cats are friendlier than dogs. They may say they like cats better, that cats are funnier, that cats are more graceful, that cats are a better pet, but friendly? In America, cats are rarely ever called friendly Cats are supposed to be “jerks,” “shy,” or “moody”. 

Another time I asked a class what their favorite animal was. One boy told me his was a dog. When I asked him why, his reason was that they were “grumpy” and “noisy.” A dog, grumpy?  But in America, dogs are a symbol of unconditional friendliness and known for their excessive outgoing-ness.

Look at this grumpy creature! (from boredpanda.com)

How can Indonesians look at cats and dogs so completely differently?

First, we need to talk about religion. Most people in Java are Muslim. Many people are under the impression that Muslims do not like dogs.  Depending on whom you ask, dogs are forbidden in Islam. Totally forbidden is an extreme view (that some people do hold), but a more nuanced and accurate (if you’re looking at the text of the Quran, not necessarily local beliefs) is that dogs are not bad creatures, and you can touch their fur, but their saliva is dirty. If you touch the saliva of a dog, you have to wash your hands seven times and pray. Now, as most dog owners know, once a dog loves you, it is pretty difficult to keep the animal from licking you, and having to wash yourself so thoroughly every time you meet your pet would get kind of annoying.

And yet, some people still keep pet turtles....(from pets4homes.co.uk)

However, to say that all Muslims can’t and do not believe in keeping a dog as a pet or that they hate dogs is inaccurate. Even if they feel that they can’t touch dogs, I’ve never met a Muslim here who advocates mass violence against dogs, and they are disgusted by the idea of eating dog. However, I have seen non-Muslim owners of dogs hit their animals and dog meat is popular in some non-Muslim islands in Indonesia (eating and hitting dogs doesn’t mean the person hates dogs either, my point is that the relationships between dog and humans is complicated). I’ve also never had anyone argue that dogs are not loyal to humans or somehow evil animals (I do often hear that they are “dirty”).

from IMDB.com

The Air Bud film series about dogs that play sports are often shown on TV. I even saw the film Beethoven (the film about the large St. Bernard dog) play on television here [picture movie poster]. Considering how often films with dogs are played, and I’ve seen children in my village watch and enjoy these films, it can’t only be the minority non-Muslims watching.  Also, there are some Muslims who keep and touch dogs without any guilt. The status of dogs for Muslims is complicated and is better explained here.

All things considered, I think it’s not quite accurate to say my students don’t like dogs. They don’t think they are friendly or safe, but it doesn’t mean they don’t like them or can’t appreciate them. Most Americans don’t think pet monkeys are clean or safe, but that doesn’t mean the average American hates monkeys.

Second, regardless of religion, there are certain cultural norms. The island of Lombok (an island next to Bali) is majority Muslim, and yet when I visited there last December, I could see many dogs around the island and people were not scared or uncomfortable. Culturally, the people of Lombok and Bali are quite similar and in Bali there are also many dogs (but the majority of people are Hindu). In the case of the people of Lombok, certain cultural norms have overridden any religious attitudes.

Thirdly, one needs to look at environment. While Lombok and Bali are filled with stray dogs, Java is filled with cats. Now, when I read about schools in America or in Europe that are charmed by a single stray cat that spends time on the campus and plays with the kids and becomes adopted by the school, library, graveyard, store, etc., I feel pretty amused. 

You ain't special in Indonesia, bub (from deweyreadmorebooks.com)

 In Java there are cats everywhere. There are several cats that weave in and out of the offices, the classrooms, and the fields at school. One day my class was interrupted when a cat decided to have her kittens in a desk at school. At night, you can hear the cats crawling on the roofs, fighting, or yowling, and if you leave the windows of the house open, cats will come inside and steal food or try to sleep on couches. God help the poor Indonesians who are allergic to cats because they are ubiquitous.

Most of my students have been interacting with cats since right after they were born. And the cats have been around people since they were born as well. The few times I actually see dogs on Java, they usually avoid eye-contact with me and move right past me. Or, they are guard dogs and they aggressively bark. The dogs on Java, for the most part, are not raised with touch or friendly smiles or human affection. They do not run to you smiling and with wagging tails.

Some of the cats are afraid of humans and run away, but they are rarely aggressive. One cat that used to be afraid of humans now follows me around the house, tries to sleep in my bed, greets me when I return home from school, and every time I have private lesson at my house, she will sit in the middle of the lesson, trying to nuzzle or lick the kids. Just this evening she tried to give me a large rat she caught. Throwing aside my own stereotypes of cat behavior, I can’t make any logical argument that this animal is “unfriendly.”

killing me with friendliness

There are so many cats on Java that most of them are not kept as anyone’s specific pet and they compete for whatever limited food there is. If a cat is especially aggressive, most people would probably have no qualms about having the cat killed or reacting violently; cats here are dispensable because there are so many, and they probably aren’t anyone’s pet, so probably no one is going to get to get angry if you have the cat killed or hit the cat. Cats are small and do not hunt in packs, so in a fight with a human there is simply no way to defend itself. Cats must be neutral or friendly to humans out of necessity because friendly cats get fed.

If I had only interacted with cats or dogs in Java my entire life, of course I would think cats are friendlier than dogs. The dogs of Java are never given the chance to become friendly because most people are afraid of them or don’t want to touch them. The people see them as unfriendly and continue to keep distance. And the cycle continues.

Last month, I watched the new Disney film, Zootopia. It was surprisingly very good and a nuanced exploration of prejudice and stereotypes (and also the war on drugs according to one reviewer). I guess the film really stuck with me because I just talked about animals to start a conversation about human stereotypes.

From t3.gstatic.com

I apologize for nonspecific spoilers, but the film does a good job of showing that while stereotypes do sometimes have a basis in reality, as the main rabbit character is attached by a fox as a child and later is tricked by a fox, society perpetuates and encourages certain behaviors and pushes people to adhere to stereotypes. It is later revealed that the one fox character was abused as a child for being violent and untrustworthy even before he ever displayed those qualities.

Even if a dog on Java were born with a friendly personality, he is not raised in an environment that encourages him to be friendly, so that’s not the animal he will become. In the film, the government line is that all animals are equal and can be anything they want, but while everyone says that at schools or in government buildings, actually prejudice of all kinds still exists. Just because an idea exists in the government or in mass media, doesn’t mean it is accepted at all levels of society; my students may watch many films with friendly dogs, but they still don’t think dogs are friendly animals.

Both the United States and the Indonesian government are officially pro-multicultural. The US’s slogan is “Out of Many, One,” while Indonesia has “Unity in Diversity.” Officially all races and religions and ethnic groups should be equal and have the same opportunities in both countries, but it isn’t true. In America blacks are stereotyped as lazy, more sexual, musical, cool, more prone to crime, not as book smart, less attractive (if female). Asians are smart, less sexual, awkward, weak, and strange. Whites are racist, boring, less interesting and unique, normal.

 In Indonesia the Javanese are soft, hard-working, polite, more educated. Sundanese are lazy, but pretty, and artistic. The Madurese are violent. The people of East Nusa Tengarra or Papua are black, ugly, not as clean, but sweet and somehow less “Indonesian.”

While I’ve never heard an Indonesian claim to hate any other specific ethnic group, the fact is that many people prescribe to these stereotypes. Even though most people don’t hate dogs, the fact that they aren’t treated as “friendly” changes their behaviors and lives. Just because a stereotype isn’t extreme or even completely negative doesn’t make it totally benign. In Indonesia, white skin is seen as beautiful, regardless of other features. I have seen casting calls for women and they nearly always insist that the women must have light skin. Occasionally there is a darker skinned male character, but I rarely see a dark-skinned female Indonesian on TV (outside of reality shows or singing contests). The one time I did see a dark-skinned Papuan woman in a singing contest, I said, “She’s pretty.” In response, the Indonesian woman I was watching with said, “Sure, she is pretty for someone from Papua.”

She's pretty...for a human being (from kabar.24.com)

A dark skinned Indonesian actress may not be hated, but she would be far less successful than a light-skinned actress. She would have to apologize for the color of her skin constantly. Her opportunities are simply not the same. Furthermore, if she is told over and over again that she is not beautiful, she will not carry herself with confidence--so she will in fact look less attractive.

When I first came to Indonesia, I couldn’t understand. To me there were plenty of dark-skinned Indonesian women who seemed quite beautiful to me. And I’ve heard Indonesian women comment that white men like to date ugly Indonesian women; ugly usually meaning dark or more Asian looking.  I understood the cultural stereotype, but still I was confused. Look at all the beautiful women that are dark and that you constantly interact with? How can they not be pretty? Even men or women who were in love with people who were dark would still often say their lover isn’t pretty or handsome

I am reminded of learning about slavery in the US as a child. In slave owning societies, whites and blacks were constantly exposed to one another. There were slaves that worked in the house, and some of those slaves were even related to their masters or their family. And yet, black people were still stereotyped as less intelligent and less human.

One of the ways to break stereotypes is to simply expose people to a group of people they are unfamiliar with, but history has taught that exposure by itself is not good enough. Men and women in most societies interact daily with members of the opposite sex, but that doesn’t stop them from stereotyping each other despite having many examples that contradict stereotypes.

Granted, this isn’t to say that increased exposure is an overall bad tactic; the increasing media presence of gays and lesbians on television greatly influenced the greater acceptance of homosexuality and same sex marriage in America. And, from what I’ve seen, gender stereotypes are definitely more fluid in societies where men and women interact more freely; e.g. gender stereotypes in Indonesia are more fluid than those in Saudi Arabia, and in some ways (from what I can see) they are more fluid here than in South Korea (where more schools and work places are segregated by gender).  If we look at Civil War era America, even if a white Southern woman did not believe slavery was wrong, she was probably more comfortable around African Americans than the average white Northern women who was exposed to racist ideas but never actually interacted with any black Americans.

Anti slavery can still be racist...(from wikipedia)

Exposure is usually only successful if people are exposed in a different way that what they are used to. Even if Indonesian television was filled with more dark-skinned actresses, if they are not presented as objects of desire or as main romantic interests, this exposure will not break the idea that they are somehow ugly or less attractive.

Everyone is has physical limits (some people are short, some tall, some are naturally athletic, etc.) and their own unique personality, but within each person exist so many potential abilities, however only some of those potential abilities are encouraged by society. All of you reading might be shaking your head in agreement—this is something we have been taught as members of pluralistic societies, and yet, even if we say we agree with this line of thinking, in our personal interactions we still stereotype and push people into boxes.

I don’t mean to say it’s totally wrong to make generalizations. Generally Indonesians are shorter than Americans. That’s true and not wrong. Going further, in general I’d say that Indonesians have a more relaxed attitude than Americans. Again, I don’t think it’s wrong to notice or say this. When it gets problematic is that when we look at a stereotype over individualistic behavior. While generally Indonesians are more relaxed, if I meet an Indonesian person who isn’t very relaxed, I can’t just write off her behavior or not acknowledge it. I can’t deny her the potential to not be a relaxed person when I meet her.

Looking at the Indonesian population as a whole, I might predict that they may react to certain news in a certain way, but if the evidence shows otherwise, I need to accept that. I have to allow all populations the luxury of exhibiting all extremes of human behavior, both good and bad. I may look for logical explanations for why so many people in America support Donald Trump. And then I also need to look for logical and historical explanations for why many Middle Easterners might support a horrible dictator instead of simply writing off the Middle East as “violent” or “unstable.” [http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/donald-trump-americas-muammar-gaddafi-125108954]

 If a little girl begins to act aggressively, instead of calling her “boyish,” perhaps I should just accept that, while most girls are not as aggressive as boys, some girls are.

The important thing, I believe, when trying to break down cultural stereotypes is that they are not a disease themselves but a symptom of a certain kind of world view that a society or individual may hold. And both societies and individuals have multiple layers of world views that are going to affect their behavior. They may have a political world view that affects their politics or what they may say in some official setting, but they may also have an altogether different world view that colors their personal actions with friends, family, or coworkers. Stereotypes, especially rigid stereotypes, exist as a tool to help categorize a chaotic world and make sense; they help enforce an individual’s place in society and their psychology.

In regards to identity and psychology, we can look at sex-based stereotypes. Much of the stereotypes that men or women have about members of the opposite sex aren’t really about the other person; really they’re about defining yourselves against those things and having a clear identity. For men or women to be “normal” in most societies, they need to be adequately masculine or feminine. Masculinity or Femininity cannot exist within a vacuum; the must be defined against each other like dark and light, hot and cold.

From wikipedia

When men complain that women are emotional, perhaps it doesn’t have to do so much with what women are, but it serves as a way of absolving themselves of guilt or bad behavior; I didn’t do something wrong, the stereotype implies. Women are just simply more emotional. Or the woman who says all men are jerks. There is nothing wrong with me personally, says that women, simply all men are jerks. What complicates things is that yes, to a degree, society may encourage women to be more emotional or men to be more jerk-like,  so there might be evidence that both things are true. However, to continue to think this way about absolutely all men or all women, or to never look for the reasons why a woman might be emotional or a man might be a jerk and understand them only perpetuates those ways of thinking and makes it more and more difficult for men or women to behave in any other way.

If we look at a different example, this time with race, we can also see how stereotypes and prejudice uphold psychology and identity. I once met a young man who insisted that he has never in his life found a black woman attractive. “I am not racist,” he insisted, “but I have never been attracted to a black woman.” When I first moved to Asia, I met many Western women that insisted that Asian men were never attractive to them, even though, they were, of course, not racist. I think attraction is complicated, and I don’t mean to say that having physical preferences is wrong. Being more attracted to one race over another does not, in itself, make you racist. Also, being attracted to members of a specific race other than your own definitely does not absolve you of racism.

Had lots of half black kids...still racist (from wikipedia

However, I would argue that finding absolutely no one of a certain race attractive in any form does imply that you are at least a little racist. The first problem is exposure; the man who didn’t like black women lived in a mostly white town and rarely interacted with black women. The Western women who moved to Asia, too, had never been exposed to many Asian men, and the media in the US does not do a good job of portraying Asian men as attractive or desirable, especially a few years ago. But it isn’t only about exposure. In order to be attracted to someone, you need to be open to that attraction first. This is why (most) people can avoid being too attracted to people who are married or in committed relationships because as soon as we know that person is unavailable, we psychologically close ourselves off to the idea of them as a potential partner.

To say that you are completely not attracted to ANYONE of a certain race or nationality allows you to express a degree of uncomfortable-ness with interacting with people of that race without seeming too racist. It allows you to treat that person differently from someone of another race without guilt—it’s not that I don’t like Asian men, says the stereotype, it’s just I’m not attracted to them, so I don’t need to get close. It could also be a psychological block; part of the person may know that being attracted to or dating outside their race or culture might be very complicated and difficult, so the person’s brain cuts off attraction to those people. It also has to do with what people find attractive and cultural stereotypes. If white or black American women decide that a man must be highly masculine to be attractive, they may insist they are not attracted to Asian men because they believe in the stereotype that Asian men are less masculine. Perhaps the young man has internalized the idea that black women are less feminine.

hmm, yes, so very manly (from lipstickalley.com)

So girly! (from menstylefashion.com)

As I have written about before, there are whole websites and forums filled with American men stereotyping all American women as entitled, spoiled, masculine, and evil, and foreign women as better girlfriends. I met a girl in high school who insisted that all American men were sex-crazed jerks but that somehow Japanese men were more caring and affectionate. She continued to hold onto this stereotype even when her friends tried to shock her by showing her hentai (animated Japanese porn). The last two examples are extreme, but as I said, in many cases, the stereotype isn’t about the person being stereotyped, really, but the person who holds those stereotypes. Instead of taking responsibility for their own shortcomings and failures, some people latch onto small generalizations or marginal trends and magnify them, only seeing things that reinforce their world view and completely ignoring anything that challenges it.

Earlier, I mentioned that people could have layers of world views. Sometimes you meet someone who lives in a politically liberal area. He or she may vote for a liberal candidate and when he is with his friends, he may say he believes in gay rights, helping refugees, ending mass incarceration, equality for men and women, etc. because he has been taught in his social circle that to not believe in these things would make him ignorant or dumb. However, he tells his girlfriend she is crazy all the time and gas lights her, he has very few friends who aren’t white, and he makes “ironic” racist jokes. At work, when he is forced to work with a client from India, he gets impatient and frustrated quickly and makes no effort to really be patient of cross cultural differences. He makes jokes about all conservatives being evil or everyone from West Virginia is a gun loving hick, and he never tries to understand the sources of other people’s political opinions. On the surface, he might firmly believe and espouse, liberal, tolerant ideals, but in practice and in his personal life he has unconsciously stereotyped and written off things he doesn’t want to think about or deal with because they question his own self-worth and identity.

On the other hand, I’ve met people who have espoused some pretty racist and intolerant political ideals because where she is from, that is the norm and to not regurgitate those stereotypes would socially outcast her. She may vote or support politics based on stereotypes. However, when actually exposed to people different from herself, she may actually be quite tolerant and kind because she feels secure in her own identity, and someone in her life emphasized empathy and friendliness. While politically she says she does not support homosexuality, a gay man has become her friend. Ultimately, she has more need for his friendship than the political need to reject him.

Neither of these two people is ideal. If we want a more tolerant society and fair society, people must be both politically and personally fair and tolerant.

But how?

On the political level, of course the laws need to be fair. Second, mass media must be changed. Lieutenant Uhura from Start Trek was important not because she was black woman on TV, but she was a black woman scientist. The sitcom Will and Grace was important not just because it had gay characters, but the gay characters were main characters with normal lives, jobs, and friends. Both of these shows were successful at changing stereotypes because they not only increased exposure, but they directly contradicted stereotypes (that black women aren’t intelligent or that gay people are less normal), and these contradictions of stereotypes were accepted as totally normal and understandably by the other characters.

from mirror.co.uk

If a government wants to eliminate certain stereotypes, it must also push the media to characterize holding those stereotypes as backward or damaging, but only to a certain degree. If a push is made too far in one direction, there is a chance of making new stereotypes or of making people feel bitter because they are suddenly made to feel guilty or less special. I am not against programs that promote minorities or their accomplishments, however, keeping in mind that not everyone is a sociologist; too much propaganda promoting a certain minority group could create backlash from different insecure groups in society. To others, this may come off as selfish, ignorant whining, but if a government can be sensitive to potential backlash, it will improve society in the long run.

Nelson Mandela famously understood this, which is why, although violence had been perpetrated far more heavily by whites than blacks during apartheid in South Africa, he made and effort to not isolate white groups. South Africa is not a perfectly harmonious racial society, but it could have been a lot worse were it not for his wisdom

The government must promote minorities but be inclusive and sensitive to other groups, especially those in decline, and it must show people the political and economic advantages of being more inclusive. Not everyone reacts to logic and data, so it must play with people’s emotions and use anecdotes. Instead of characterizing majority groups as barriers to the success of minorities, it must promote the idea that the majority can help others and find heroism and identity in working to make 

things fairer.

In the case of Indonesia, the Indonesian government has tied tolerance for other religions to the national identity of Indonesian Islam and promotes tolerance for other religions as a source of pride and characteristic of the Indonesian people. Indonesia is not perfectly religiously tolerant, but that government action has certainly helped promote tolerance.

and they've got a pretty sweet abandoned chicken church (from atlasobscura.com)

Combating stereotypes on a personal level is more complicated. People my learn their politics from mass media, the government, or circles of friends, but their personal behavior comes from their parents and their closest peers going up, and they may be subconsciously held. Simply forcing exposure doesn’t always work either—as I’ve written about before, sometimes expatriates who live in foreign countries end up more prejudiced than they were before.

If you really want to break someone of a stereotype, you need to understand why that stereotype exists. There are stories of people who used to be part of the KKK or other white supremacist groups who after working years with people of other races got over their stereotypes and began to work for racial equality. In their cases, the source of those stereotypes was the social network that supported those people. The friends and the groups and the people that were most important in their lives held those beliefs. Working with someone of a different race who didn’t end up hurting him and supported him socially erased the reasons for holding those beliefs.

Eventually, most of the Western women I went to Asia with eventually became attracted to Asian men. Part of it was exposure, and the other part was that after time, the culture became less alien. The psychological shock of hoping to understand someone of that race enough to date them had worn off.

For Indonesians, the stereotype that people with darker skin are less attractive has roots historically in Asia but more importantly from European and Arab colonialism. Indonesia as a society must become more secure in its position in the world and shed the vestiges of colonialism. The stereotype is there to insist that it is not all Indonesians who are dark—simply some women are dark and they are the ugly ones.

You can show a blind man a million pictures, but he still will not know what the ocean looks like. Before exposure can work, you first need to attack the disease that is making someone blind or out of focus. Yes, rigid stereotypes are damaging and awful when perpetrated on another human being; we should never forget to help the victims of stereotypes and prejudice. But if you want to stop prejudice from being perpetuated you must ask what is damaging the person who clings to it.

A dog and a cat being friendly (from petsbest.com)