Why do we generalize?

[Theonlyolympian]

We both do it men and women but lately I’ve noticed men get generalized the most “all men the same” I don’t buy into that

[Soteris]

One of the strongest traits humans have is what is called "pattern recognition", the ability to identify patterns in our environment. This is not just something fairly useful, but something that we are INCREDIBLY driven to do on a very fundamental level. We will look for patterns in EVERYTHING, even discovering patterns that does not actually exist. Things like finding the pattern for a face in a burnt toast for example or finding funny clouds shaped like a dog or whatever.

Point is, we like patterns and we will stop at nothing to make ourselves believe in them. In this sense we are incredibly lazy. If you see a group of people you do not observe them as a group of individuals but rather try to identify the group as a whole. Maybe they look like a group of teenagers, maybe business men or whatever. We attribute some kind of stereotype to the group as a whole and do not really concern ourselves with the specifics of each person.

This all comes together to first find the pattern that identifies "men" and then the laziness to attribute the stereotype you associate with what men "are" and "do" to everyone inside that category.

[JustMeQ2]

For some is because of the simplicity of the convo (this doesn't mean that they believe it applies to all, just don't vocalize it), some just don't like to have complicated opinions (ignorance is bliss), others have issues that they either don't know they have or don't want to tackle them (this is where the “all men/women are the same” comes from).

[Grognard]

Because the sexist political movement known as "feminism" has normalized misandry.