SumBlog 9: Erving Goffman's Stigma

   During our discussion of Erving Goffman this week, we filled out a worksheet describing a time when we were stigmatized, and I really enjoyed that activity because I had a perfect example in mind. Before we get to that, however, it is important to explain what a stigma is. From what I understood from our discussion and the readings, stigmas are external forces that can prevent people from presenting themselves in certain ways. Basically, a person can try to act in certain ways depending on the situation or the position they are in, but other people have these ideas in their minds about that person or that position and those ideas can stop him or her from conveying what they want to convey. The fact that some groups of people are stigmatized, such as criminals or minorities, disappoints me because sometimes they can't get past those stigmas and it begins to affect the way they lead their lives. I would for sure say that stigmas are still present in today's society. Everywhere you look you see some sort of stigma being applied to a person or a group of people, and I honestly don't think we will ever be free of these stigmas.
   For my personal example of being stigmatized, I thought of my experiences at my job, which is working at a grocery store. There have been many instances in the recent past where I have been stigmatized as being unknowledgeable because I am young. For instance, a customer may come up to the checkouts with a question about a product or about something in our ad, and instead of asking me, someone who has been working there for 5 1/2 years and is a customer service representative, they will ask an older employee who has only been there for less than a year. Then when that employee can't answer the question, they will direct the customer to me anyways. When this happens, I just feel like I am being judged because of my age, because the only reason that the customer asked the other employee is simply because they are much older than me and therefore are apparently much more knowledgeable, and sure in some cases that may be true, but not in all. There have been many times when I have been burdened by this stigma, and I'm sure there will be more incidences in the future, and the only solution I can think of is simply to wait it out and deal with it until I am older. Overall, the concept of stigmas will be present in our society for a long time yet, so the groups who are stigmatized will have to overcome them in order to present themselves the way they would like.

When I was researching stigmas, I came across a lot of information about a movement to end the stigma against HIV, and I really liked this quote I found by Nelson Mandela. Even though I had never heard of this movement, it seems that it would be very important and critical to stop these stigmas against people living with HIV/AIDS because in some cases they are being denied treatment and healthcare because people are afraid of even getting close to these patients.