California state university fullerton. women gender studies practice edit

Elliott was born in 1933 on her family's farm in Riceville, Iowa. Her father, who delivered her, was Irish-American. Elliots father was Irish Protestant and her mother was Irish Catholic. She was the fourth of five children. Elliotts fathers had taught his children while growing up the difference of right and wrong. He had always encouraged them to be a moral and do what was right.

Elliot describes Riceville in her childhood being an all white town that promoted racial stereotypes of African Americans. It wasn't until she had married moved away from Riceville town to Waterloo, Iowa, also known as little chicago, that her and her husband both learned that they had been told lies about African American people. These lies gave negative impressions to who african american people were and how they acted. At the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, Elliots husbands store was the first picketed because they would hire african american employees. In fear of having to pick a side, Elliot and her husband moved back to Riceville. Upon returning back to Riceville, elliot had picked up a teaching job her sister had resigning from.

Before stepping into the classroom Elliott and thought about what physical characteristic to base the experiment off of. Elliot decided she couldn't use height because she was the only one tall in the room, age because the children were of the same age, refused to use weight because people use it all the time, hair color because that could be easily changed, and gender because sexism runs rampant. Elliot had picked eyes because it’s a physical characteristic that there was no control over. Say ugly things to them on the basis of that characteristic, treat them as though those ugly characteristics were true. Elliot lowered her expectations of them and force them to live down to her expectations and when they complied elliot would blame that characteristic to why they did so.