This 2009 quote from Harriet Jay’s remarkable blog Fugitivus came up in a ManBoobz thread. I wanted to highlight it firstly because it’s marvellous, and secondly to link back to the original post to make it easier for others to cite it.
Stereotypes exist pretty clearly to benefit the current social order, and when somebody enacts the stereotype perfectly, it becomes evidence for the stereotype, and when somebody acts in the complete opposite of the stereotype, they are exceptions and also fall into other very convenient stereotypes …