Now the Star-Belly Sneetches Had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches Had none upon thars. Those stars weren't so big. They were really so small. You might think such a thing wouldn't matter at all. (Dr Seuss, 1957) In Erving Goffman’s 1963 book Stigma: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity, the term stigma is explained. “The term stigma, then, will be used to refer to an attribute that is deeply discrediting, but it should be seen that a language of relationships, not attributes, is really needed” (Goffman, p, 13). What Goffman means by this is that stigma is not an automatic standard response from one person to another, but one determined by context. There is often an automatic stigma about certain indicators of “difference” in society. For instance, if we meet a person in a wheelchair, we may be tempted to treat them differently than others as an automatic response to their perceived inability to perform things ...
Sociology, Economics, Leadership