The Body Silent: What Is A Minority Status Or Stigmatization?
What is a Minority Group?
Question 1:
What does it mean to say a category of people is a “minority group”? Does this differ from what Erving Goffman calls a “stigma”? Or how is the way one would look at a given situation different if we think of it as minority status vs. stigmatization? Apply these ideas to situations involving paraplegia as described by Robert Murphy in The Body Silent. How is the situation of the disabled like or unlike that of homosexuals as described by Frank Kameny?
In the world today, genetics play an important role in who you will become, what you look like, and also any defects that might occur. These defects, or the thing that make you different, is one thing that Erving Goffman, an American Sociologist, …show more content…
A minority can be separated into four categories; the first being a cultural, physical, or physiological difference that is not similar to those of the normal population. Secondly, there are unequal experiences and treatments that these individuals go through that are based on their stigma. Thirdly, the minority status is put upon you and not necessarily chosen and lastly individuals of this stigma group form a strong front when confronting or dealing with their stigma. Now with this broken down, we can now say that those that are blind, deaf, and/or homosexual can be considered a minority. These individuals cannot help the way that they were born or raised, so living in a society that does not meet your needs or even tries to understand the world from your point of view, makes it challenging for one to want to life in the normal …show more content…
Handicapped people are now fighting for easier access into buildings, apartments, and even jobs. It is sad to think that someone is not offered the job because they are blind, cannot walk or even talk. Murphy describes the United States as a very rejecting country towards the disabled when saying, “There is a clear pattern in the United States, and in many other countries, of prejudice toward the disabled and debasement of their social status, which find their most extreme expressions in avoidance, fear, and outright hostility” (Murphy, 112). These individuals are viewed as inferior human beings solely because they are slightly different than the
Question 1:
What does it mean to say a category of people is a “minority group”? Does this differ from what Erving Goffman calls a “stigma”? Or how is the way one would look at a given situation different if we think of it as minority status vs. stigmatization? Apply these ideas to situations involving paraplegia as described by Robert Murphy in The Body Silent. How is the situation of the disabled like or unlike that of homosexuals as described by Frank Kameny?
In the world today, genetics play an important role in who you will become, what you look like, and also any defects that might occur. These defects, or the thing that make you different, is one thing that Erving Goffman, an American Sociologist, …show more content…
A minority can be separated into four categories; the first being a cultural, physical, or physiological difference that is not similar to those of the normal population. Secondly, there are unequal experiences and treatments that these individuals go through that are based on their stigma. Thirdly, the minority status is put upon you and not necessarily chosen and lastly individuals of this stigma group form a strong front when confronting or dealing with their stigma. Now with this broken down, we can now say that those that are blind, deaf, and/or homosexual can be considered a minority. These individuals cannot help the way that they were born or raised, so living in a society that does not meet your needs or even tries to understand the world from your point of view, makes it challenging for one to want to life in the normal …show more content…
Handicapped people are now fighting for easier access into buildings, apartments, and even jobs. It is sad to think that someone is not offered the job because they are blind, cannot walk or even talk. Murphy describes the United States as a very rejecting country towards the disabled when saying, “There is a clear pattern in the United States, and in many other countries, of prejudice toward the disabled and debasement of their social status, which find their most extreme expressions in avoidance, fear, and outright hostility” (Murphy, 112). These individuals are viewed as inferior human beings solely because they are slightly different than the