Step 3: Getting to Know Other Cultures

Making assumptions or value judgments about other cultures is common behavior, and being aware of these assumptions is essential to success in engaging men and boys from diverse communities.

Generalizations can be helpful in understanding a community—as long as you leave ample room for exceptions. But if generalizations turn into stereotypes, they will hamper your work to prevent gender-based violence.

This exercise allows a group of people who might not know each other to talk about difficult issues without shame or blame. It is often used by antiracism trainers in settings where there’s not enough safety or trust for the participants to share their impressions of a cultural or social group. When doing this exercise, it’s important to avoid delving too deeply into feelings that arise.

Read the following scenario:

As part of its campaign to prevent gender violence, a community service agency decides to engage the Latino population, particularly men. As a first step, agency leaders (who do not include any Latinos or Latinas) get together to share impressions about the Latino community. They come up with the following assumptions:

• By and large, the Latino community doesn’t trust our agency.
• Latino men are violent and domineering with their families.
• Many Latinos and Latinas are very spiritual and religious.
• The family unit is very important to most Latino men.
• Our agency will never be able to engage Latino men. They don’t speak English and are set in traditional ways.
• Most Latinos in this area are immigrant farm workers and have little or no formal education. Many are illiterate.
• Latino men are heavy drinkers and always looking for trouble.

Now answer the following questions:

• What is your first impression of the list of assumptions?
• Do you think any of these assumptions are true?
• If so, which ones, and why?
• Are they useful in trying to engage the community?

Some of the assumptions and generalizations in this scenario could indeed be useful in trying to engage the community. For example, it is probably fair to assume that many Latinos might not trust the organization, and that family and religion are very important to many in the community. And if it is true that this community has a high level of illiteracy, prevention efforts must take that into account to be effective.

On the other hand, absolute statements like “Latino men are very violent and domineering with their families” and “Latino men are heavy drinkers and always looking for trouble” are negative stereotypes. They don’t allow for exceptions. Even “Latinos don’t speak English and are set in traditional ways” is a stereotype. It might be true for some people and some communities, but the statement lacks those key modifiers. When generalizations turn into stereotypes, they are detrimental to building alliances.

We all make assumptions about others. Sometimes we call them first impressions. But first impressions are more than what they seem, as the following true story illustrates:

At the beginning of a workshop about culture, the trainer showed up in blue jeans and a T-shirt. Without speaking, he asked participants to write down their first impressions of him. Later, the trainer collected the anonymous answers and read a few of them. Many included assumptions that the trainer was working class, “ethnic” (he is Mexican-American), and probably not very educated. A couple of people even revealed a reluctance to accept instruction from him.

During the next break, the trainer changed into a suit and tie and again asked participants to write down their impressions. This time it wasn’t a first impression, but nevertheless, the majority of answers included terms like professional, competent, educated and even erudite. A nice suit can work miracles!

Reflection Questions

• What communities is your coalition or agency is interested in engaging?
• What generalizations might be useful for building meaningful alliances with these groups? What stereotypes would get in the way of your work?
• How do you know?

Discussion Board

Share your responses and see what other people are saying about getting to know other cultures and how this understanding can help forge alliances.