Disrupting Scripts, Disrupting Stereotypes

Abstract Chapter 3 begins the project of identifying tools for rejecting harmful scripts and, along the way, rejecting and pushing back against harmful stereotypes. It argues that challenging certain social scripts can push back on corresponding and related stereotypes. Many scripts harm. Disrupting a script can mediate some of the harms caused by scripts, and can sometimes be the best option for someone in the grips of a harmful, pernicious, or oppressive script. In arguing for this, the chapter does not mean to suggest that social scripts are inherently or necessarily pernicious, or maintain that we ought to do away with them entirely. It is more interested in how to successfully dismantle the ones that harm. The chapter gives examples of interpersonal and structural disruptions.