Ignorance, a two-way street

After last week's post, I was really curious about the other side of this issue of stereotyping. People are more likely ignorant than informed, so I figured there had to be equally as inaccurate stereotypes regarding Americans. With the help of the same PBS article, and an assortment of political cartoons and blogs, I've chosen five common misconceptions to address that the rest of the world may hold about Americans.

1. All Americans are rich. I feel as though this is a stereotype that people internalize, but with a little bit of thought they know it cannot logically be true. In fact, about 15% of Americans live in poverty, but that isn't the image we try and project to the world at large because that is not part of the "American dream". The TV shows we send abroad tend to focus more on the glamorous Hollywood side of things, which fuels more negative stereotypes.
2. American women are promiscuous. Again, thank you Hollywood. This misconception seriously struck me though, because I think women are highly sexualized in American, there are many Americans who would say the same of European women. I know among my high school we would venture to make that judgement given our experiences with exchange students. European teens just seem so much more wild than us. They can drink and go to night clubs, while we have curfews until we are 18. I found it ironic that the country founded on Puritanical values now has a worldwide reputation for promiscuity.
3. Americans are hypocrites. This stereotypes has validity in regards to the American government though. Obviously when we say we stand for freedom, but prop up dictators, we are labeled as hypocrites. Take for example our part in the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat, or even our involvement in Iraq can be seen with some hypocrisy. Although we do the same, projecting the actions of a government onto the population of a country, we all need to keep in mind that there are always people who opposed the government and no one idea or belief is shared by everyone in a country.
4. Americans are lazy. This probably stems from the fact that one-third of Americans are obese, but I actually find this stereotype ironic because there is also the impression that Americans are always busy and always working. I keep playing with the idea of how you can be both lazy and incredibly over-scheduled?
5. Americans are stupid. Well my appologies President Bush, but you didn't help us out much there. As an American who does not consider herself to be particularly stupid, this is one of the most offensive stereotypes to me. And here is a study, that is cited in the book Stupid White Men that made me feel better about my fellow Americans, turns out we are not alone in our stupidity...

89% of Canadians couldn't locate Iraq on a map, a higher "ignorance rate" than that of the United States.
81% of Canadians couldn't locate Israel on a map
5% of Canadians couldn't locate Canada on a map
90% of Britons couldn't locate Iraq on a map, again a worse figure than that of the US
21% of Britons couldn't locate the USA on a map
7% of Britons couldn't locate the England on a map
Swedes scored highest in the poll -- but even there 70% couldn't find Iraq