My experience is that whether you talk about them or not, stereotypes just ARE. Not only that, I think the most dangerous, insidious stereotypes are those that go un-talked-about.

My upbringing in a conservative, Christian home reinforced a number of stereotypes that I now see as silly and false, but only some of them were overtly taught/talked about. One stereotype that was particularly destructive in my life was the one that said, "women are not as good as men." No one EVER said those words aloud, but I got the message loud and clear: "Good men act morally; Good women change themselves to be acceptable. Even then, women are inherently less intelligent, especially when it comes to spiritual matters." This unspoken stereotype was reinforced everywhere I turned. My father made all the decisions and if my mom was pressed to make one, she would refuse to do so without first consulting my father. The pastors, deacons and elders in the churches we attended were all men. I felt tangibly that if I was going to be a "godly woman, I would have to basically silence my feelings, shut off many thoughts, eventually be willing to pour myself
out for everyone but me in the role of wife and mother and (this was pretty unique to my family) repress my hunger and become as thin as possible. Basically, nothing about me was ok as is. I shut the door to my "knowing place." 

As an adult, while dealing with the eating disorder my mother had essentially taught me (and that was silently backed up by the silence from my physician father), I found some incredible feminist books that challenged my body image but also challenged the gender stereotypes of my childhood. These authors NAMED the stereotypes and challenged the thinking behind them in a way I had never, ever heard previously. They gave me permission to feed myself, emote, feel and become. They said what my little girl heart had always been longing to hear: you are a woman and BECAUSE of that, you have things to offer the world that are not just good, but NECESSARY. 

You see, the silent stereotypes I lived under were reinforced by my religion, culture and even...here's the really awful one...by God. I understand now God doesn't actually see me as inferior to someone else because of my gender any more than (s)he sees someone as being inferior because of the color of their skin. But as we saw in the Civil Rights movement, INSTITUTIONALIZED stereotypes and the resulting prejudice and even violence are the most insidious because they've been stitched into the very fiber of our culture, our religions, our laws and our hearts for so long that we can no longer pick the thread out without unraveling the entire tapestry. No one has to talk about them to make them powerful. 

So do we keep talking about, exposing and pointing out stereotypes that have been largely debunked by the culture? Do we keep talking about racism, gender-descrimination and the objectification of women? Oh YES...a hundred times yes. Many if those feminist books that gave me back myself in many ways were written in the 70's and 80's by my mother's peers. These books had given many of my mother's peers permission to have professional careers, but I didn't find them until age 19. At age 23, i thought I was "enlightened" about gender descrimination, but when I was served communion in church by a woman for the first time in my life, I WEPT.

I have to keep exposing stereotypes, pointing out unfairness and talking about the past OUT LOUD. My girls are growing up in a society that gives women power....mostly. But the society was SHAPED until the last century by people who had a fundamental belief that women are less than. I can't allow my daughters to grow up in the residue of that without calling the residue what it is. They have to know that any descrimination they encounter is not just wrong, but that their mother believes it's wrong. 

One last point! There are always negative stereotypes. Perhaps we as a society are mostly beyond discrimination? That's debatable. But what is our blind spot TODAY? What beliefs/views do we hold that our grandchildren will be horrified by? Even if we don't know what those will be, we MUST tell stories, remind our children of how far we've come and point out the residue. Why? Because it's our stories, our courage, our mistakes and our battles, written on our children's hearts, that will prime them to expose what we are blind to. We must teach them to spot stereotypes, discrimination, injustice and untruth BY EXAMPLE.