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Lumifer comments on November 2014 Media Thread - Less Wrong
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Progressives hold that stereotypes promote arbitrary, random and generally false beliefs about groups of people. But then why do these stereotypes remain stable across generations? And why don't people ever get their stereotypes mixed up?
For example, if some said that he didn't mind having registered sex offenders as neighbors because their presence wouldn't hurt property values and his community's reputation, you wouldn't praise this guy for his lack of stereotypical thinking. Instead you would question his judgment.
Ironically progressives don't have a problem at all with promoting stereotypes which put rich people and businessmen in a bad light. The popularity of Ayn Rand's alternative humanism pisses them off because she got some market share in reversing these stereotypes, and again in defiance of progressives' central planning to reshape the human mind like clay,.
Rational expectations equalibria are a thing. To take a somewhat exagerated example, if everyone thinks that girls suck at math, so no one teaches girls to do math, then no one will ever find out whether or not girls actually suck at math.
"Throwing like a girl" is a prime example of that sort of thing. Throwing like a girl turns out to be throwing like someone who's inexperienced with throwing.
If a boy throws like a girl, he's taught and/or shamed out of it as quickly as possible. If a girl throws like a girl, well, what did you expect?
I've phrased this in the present tense, but the culture's improved on the subject.
Now consider a similar-sounding stereotype: "Men are physically stronger than women". Think that's fixable by different expectations?
While some stereotypes reflect cultural expectations, some reflect biological reality.
Strength is determined by biology and behavior; the stereotype reflects both biological reality and cultural expectations. Note that boys are/were expected to be stronger than girls even before puberty actually creates a meaningful biological gap...