Blondes are dumb
For years
American culture has
hyper-feminized the
blonde women. Blonde hair was seen as a sign of purity and youthfulness. Also potentially childishness. A small number of blonde women did in fact act tremendously stupid at time and the
stereotype developed-- out of truth.
Women are bad drivers
Women were not allowed to drive carriages and had to ride horses sidesaddle to be considered "proper" when cars came along it took time for women to take to the wheel. There was a period in history when women were bad drivers because they had less experience. Also women are not encouraged to be fascinated with machinery so they tend to have less interest in cars this could also contribute to the
truth behind the stereotype. (though I think there was a study that showed that women are now better drivers than men -- these things change but the stereotypes linger on.)
Natives are lazy
Of course they aren't but if you apply the
western definition of industriousness to what people (say pacific islanders) do during a day they are in fact lazy. If your definition of
human achievement is building cities and conquering other countries there is truth in the stereotype.
Blacks are criminals
Black people still commit more crimes per-capita than white. This is because black people tend to be poor. Still there is truth in the stereotype
Some stereotypes outlive the
truths they developed out of and some developed out of truths that were only true from a small segment of the stereotyped population-- but these ideas are not
fantasy. They are there for a reason, and
without understating the reason there will be no way to change them.