STIGMA.
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A stigmatized person is more or
less an outcast. Previously, a stigma literally refers to a sign of disgrace
that one had on their body. But the stigma that we know today refers
more to the disgraceful characteristic than an actual physical mark. According to Goffman, “The
phenomenon whereby an individual with an attribute which is deeply discredited
by his/her society is rejected as a result of the attribute. Stigma is a
process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity” (Goffman,
1963). Today, a stigma is both visible and invisible to our naked eyes.
Even then, once a person is identified to posses a stigma, he or she will
immediately be perceived, more often than not, negatively, and according to the
stigma they posses. In his book Stigma: Notes on the Management of
Spoiled Identity, Goffman categorized the stigmas into 3 different
types:
1.
Stigma of character traits
·
A stigma based on your ‘unnatural’
behavior, e.g.: homosexuality, alcoholism, suicidal attempts, mental disorder,
etc.
2.
Physical stigma
·
A stigma based on your physical
appearance, such as; disabilities/deformities, blemishes, weight, etc.
3.
Tribal stigma
·
A stigma based on your race, nationality,
religion or ethnic background.
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Incidentally, a stigma wouldn’t be
complete without a stigma symbol. Stigma symbols are the visuals that are used
to brand or label a stigmatized person. Some examples of these stigma symbols
that Goffman gave in his book were, skin colour, hearing aids and wheelchairs.
There are many more examples of stigma symbols in our society. Looking back in
history, the society have already been using these stigma symbols to negatively
label people since as early as the 13th century, when the fourth
Lateran council required Jews to wear something on their clothes to identify
themselves (canon 68). By 16th century, the secular government
demanded the Jews to wear a yellow symbol or Jew hats (stigma symbol) to
differentiate themselves. Other examples of stigma symbols in history were, the
yellow/red ribbons that prostitutes were expected to wear and the identifiable
tunics and hand-held torches that the church forced the heretics to wear during
public shaming.
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So how can a stigmatized person
hide his stigma? One method is to use a disindentifier. A disindentifier
is something that stops or deflects the immediate association between the
stigmatized person and the stigma itself. These are acts that
stigma-bearers did to cover up their stigma in the society and attempt to
‘pass’ as a ‘normal’ person. Examples of disindentifier are, when a
homosexual tells ‘queer jokes’ to pass as a heterosexual person or, as given in
the book, when an educated black man ‘loses’ his ‘good English’ when he was
visiting the South. While some of these methods may work, this method is
usually harmful to the stigma-bearer. The stigmatized person might get
depressed or simply gets drained from trying too hard to be ‘normal’.
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After learning about stigma, a
question popped in my head: How would we know if we ourselves, posses a stigma
or not? My answer to this question is that we don’t get to decide it ourselves.
Instead we wait and see if OTHER people will give us a stigma or not. It’s sad
to say that we don’t define ourselves. It is what others have to say about us,
that truly matters. I’m not sure if the societies hundreds of years ago are
different than now, but for us living in this century, what define us are the
opinions of everybody else, except ourselves.
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Some thoughts on Stigma:
In our society today, we don’t really have to be visually
different than other people to ‘have’ a stigma. Therefore, how can we tell the
difference between the ‘normal’ and those who have stigmata? Is it important to
differentiate the two? And how exactly are we supposed to act around a
stigmatized person? Ignore them? Give them a ‘special’ treatment because of
their stigma? Or act as if they do not posses a stigma? What do the majority of
the society have to do to make sure that these people wont be out-casted?
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