Obvious Stereotypes of Spain

What Are Stereotypes?

The Sociology of a stereotype is any thought that is cut down or consistent with a common image invested

with a certain type of meaning to it.   Stereotypes are many times held by specific members of groups to categorize a certain set of individuals either from a certain heritage, country, race or religion. For instance, many stereotypes are general assumptions on how people think that certain groups of individuals from Spain live their life, the food they eat, how they act, etc.

 

Spanish Stereotypes Involving Fashion

Like many of the stereotypes that we see or hear about in our society today, Spain’s stereotypes have very little accuracy to them and how individuals may live.  Spain, like most of Europe, is one of the main fashion industry based cities in all of Europe.  When it comes to the media this 

country has one of the highest turn-out rates for fashion based media.  They have Fashion Week and many fashion shows that are constantly happening around the country. These shows are seen by just about every individual in that country and most likely in other countries as well.  People have a tendency of following fashion, designers and most of the time the models specifically.  Teenagers in Spain I am sure many times see these fashion shows and aspire to look like the model that they just saw; beautiful, popular and skinny.

When consumers see these models that weigh absolutely nothing and have these wall like bodies they think of that as the “norm.”  Individuals then seek to want to actually look this, which then leads to eating disorders, and health issues because looking like this in fact is not a healthy way of living.  If this is not what the “norm” of what the Spanish country looks like then why do they have such skinny models on the runway?   Designers use to believe that this was the best way to sell things to the media in order for their clothes to be popular and up-to-date with society’s fashion.  They figured that skinny models would be able to sell their clothes much better and faster.  

Individuals are seeing these models and wanting to look just like them because they are skinny and beautiful so they think that maybe by buying the clothes they can just as skinny and beautiful as the models do.  But of course like everything something gets in the way, their weight.  A teenage girl looks in the mirror and realizes that she does not look like the model because she is not as skinny as the model was in the fashion show.  This then leads to super skinny teenagers with health issues and eating disorders.

 

Spain’s Change In Size?

Spain has taken the initiative to attempt to change the size of their fashion models that show off their clothing.  This all started when Pasarela Cibeles, the countries most famous fashion show, decided that they were going to bane super 

skinny models from walking in their fashion shows.  In doing this Spain was hoping that this would improve women’s thinking that being to skinny was something that needed to be done.  They wanted to show that being a “norm” size was ok and acceptable according to fashion.  By doing this they were hoping to change the perception of the media and how the media portrayed the Spanish Fashion Shows along with their super skinny models. 

The Spanish government has decided that they want to also help improve this bad stereotype to then improve the health of the women in their country who may be dying from bulimia or anorexia because they are attempting to look like these models.  The government is requiring clothes companies to change the sizing system to help women’s health as well as their self-esteem issues that they might be having because of seeing these models.  Although other countries in Europe do not agree with what Spain is doing they do not acknowledge it as something that is happening in the fashion world but instead as something that is happening in Spain.