Unjustified/Justified Stigma, Essay Example

Stigma may be defined as discrimination, prejudice or bias against other people who are often deemed to be inferior in some way e.g. Mental patients, drug addicts, alcoholics, those with HIV/Aids and in some cases gender related alike that of homosexuals or lesbians. Women’s rights campaign is a specific example of stigmatism that has been perpetuated over hundreds of years. The struggle for women’s rights remains an international concern, even to this very day.  In particular the rights of the African woman who toils night and day amidst almost intolerable conditions of poverty.  They suffer extremely difficult social and prejudicial conditions.  Despite all of this women continue to fight for their human rights, race eloquence and tenacity.  Religion is also a contribution factor in denying women their basic rights.  The Islamic world seems particularly at fault here, unable to break away from outmoded tradition.  Prejudice here seems more focused towards women in the lower classes of society.  Whereas a more affluent women are able to gain much more independence and freedom. (Smith, 2002)

A situation where a stigma might be justified is that of a person arrested as a suspected terrorist and sent to Guantanamo Bay detention centre.  There may have been justified reasons for the arrest but the person has not been brought to trial and is therefore innocent before being proven guilty in a court of law.  The person has now been branded and treated as a terrorist. As such he may have been persecuted and injured during captivity and mentally scarred for life.  In the military context there was sufficient justification for the arrest but if reasonable doubt exists the person charged may not be guilty in the eyes of the law. Equally many of these people are armed civilians and not military personnel which further complicates the matter.

One might argue that stigmatism is justified in certain cases i.e. that associated with terrorists for example.  However, this is a difficult line of thought to follow as one man’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.  Equally there is the concept of scapegoats and for example Hitler’s Nazi party portrayal of the Jewish people in order that he might have the excuse to embark on a path of ethnic cleansing.  The very concept of stigmatism is born out of ignorance and a lack of both knowledge and tolerance. Any sort of discriminatory behaviour is ultimately dangerous and can lead to serious consequences that depict the dark side of human behaviour.  “The persecution of homosexual men, transvestites, and “race defilers” in Nazi Germany carried the traditional religious and psychiatric stigmatization of sexual nonconformists in Europe to its logical extreme” (Haeberle, 1981)

Works Cited

Haeberle, E. J. (1981). Stigmata of Degeneration: Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 6 (1/2, 135-139.

Smith, M. (2002). Stigma. Advances in psychiatric treatment, 317-325.