Monday, 21 June 2010
Monday, 14 June 2010
"Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."
"Schemes are full of pregnant teenagers and unemployed, semi-literate thugs on benefits. They are all a bunch of wasters!"
Above is a statement which is a stereotypical viewpoint of housing schemes. Housing schemes originated in the late nineteenth century and were built and operated to provide uncrowded, well built homes at below the market rent which working class people can afford. Taking this into consideration, it is unfair to brand everyone who lives in a housing scheme as being "unemployed, semi-literate thugs" as we have just come out of a recession and for many people, this may be all that they can afford. This stereotypical viewpoint may have started for many reasons. The media could have played a part in creating this assumption as hit drama 'Shameless' and documentary 'The Scheme' both show schemes full of violent, unemployed criminals who depend on criminal activity for income and who are accustomed to a lifestyle vastly different to many of us. Another reason could be that some people may know other people who live in a housing scheme and do not make an honest living, and so assume that everyone living around these people are also not making an honest living. As mentioned beforehand, we have just come out of a recession, and as a result many people have been made redundant and find themselves unemployed, so I do not feel that this is specific to just people who live on housing schemes. I think stereotypically, people feel that people who live in housing schemes are not as clever as others. This is shown with the "semi literate" comment at the top of the page. This is not always the case however as people may simply be living there as they are trying to make there first step onto the housing market ladder, or they may wish to live close to friends or family. As for the comment regarding schemes being full of pregnant teenagers, it is unfair to assume this as their may be an equal amount of teenagers in another area with the same amount of teenage pregnancies. If studies did show that there were a very large amount of teenage pregnancies on housing schemes, then you would need to ask why that is instead of just assuming that it is because they are "wasters". It could be down to not being educated enough about safe sex and the dangers of participating in unprotected sex. It could also be down to peer pressure and young males and females being made to feel that if they don't have sex, then they are missing out and are not part of the group. Family life may also play a factor as if they are having a hard time at home, then they may wish to get pregnant in order to be given free housing by the council in order to get out of there homes. We need to work together in order to find out what is the cause of our problems rather than labelling people and allowing the same vicious cycle to continue.
Above is a statement which is a stereotypical viewpoint of housing schemes. Housing schemes originated in the late nineteenth century and were built and operated to provide uncrowded, well built homes at below the market rent which working class people can afford. Taking this into consideration, it is unfair to brand everyone who lives in a housing scheme as being "unemployed, semi-literate thugs" as we have just come out of a recession and for many people, this may be all that they can afford. This stereotypical viewpoint may have started for many reasons. The media could have played a part in creating this assumption as hit drama 'Shameless' and documentary 'The Scheme' both show schemes full of violent, unemployed criminals who depend on criminal activity for income and who are accustomed to a lifestyle vastly different to many of us. Another reason could be that some people may know other people who live in a housing scheme and do not make an honest living, and so assume that everyone living around these people are also not making an honest living. As mentioned beforehand, we have just come out of a recession, and as a result many people have been made redundant and find themselves unemployed, so I do not feel that this is specific to just people who live on housing schemes. I think stereotypically, people feel that people who live in housing schemes are not as clever as others. This is shown with the "semi literate" comment at the top of the page. This is not always the case however as people may simply be living there as they are trying to make there first step onto the housing market ladder, or they may wish to live close to friends or family. As for the comment regarding schemes being full of pregnant teenagers, it is unfair to assume this as their may be an equal amount of teenagers in another area with the same amount of teenage pregnancies. If studies did show that there were a very large amount of teenage pregnancies on housing schemes, then you would need to ask why that is instead of just assuming that it is because they are "wasters". It could be down to not being educated enough about safe sex and the dangers of participating in unprotected sex. It could also be down to peer pressure and young males and females being made to feel that if they don't have sex, then they are missing out and are not part of the group. Family life may also play a factor as if they are having a hard time at home, then they may wish to get pregnant in order to be given free housing by the council in order to get out of there homes. We need to work together in order to find out what is the cause of our problems rather than labelling people and allowing the same vicious cycle to continue.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)