It used to be illegitimacy. Or abortion. Or divorce. Stigma was attached to actions that were overtly or tacitly unacceptable. The consequence was banishment from the fold. Being shunned by those whose approval you wanted. Whose love you needed.
Some of the reasons may have shifted, but stigma remains a part of western culture.
Children out of wedlock in Hollywood? Nothing unusual. In small town America? Not the problem it was 30 years ago, but still not cool.
Homosexuality? We know that’s a tricky one. Only recently, we heard of the tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi, a clear sign that stigma attached to expressions of sexuality, especially for the young, is well entrenched in our collective psyche.
What about other sorts of stigma? More subtle, but just as damaging? What about the stigma of depression or any other mental health condition?
Stigma, by definition
According to Dictionary.com, stigma is
a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one’s reputation.
That brief string of words hardly seems sufficient for the devastation of a breach in privacy when it comes to certain matters. We reel at the weight of “a mark of disgrace or infamy” that must have pressed on Tyler Clementi.
As for being on the receiving end of reproach, who wants to endure disapproval and derision, exclusion by family and friends, or “simple” invisibility?
Depression
While depression is less misunderstood than it once was, saying aloud that one suffers from depression is an act of bravery. Our culture expects a happy face, a positive spin, and we are the purveyors of Fake it until you make it – even when it comes to oppressive realities.
We ask How are you and anticipate Fine thanks, stunned if we receive something more authentic or more grave than “a little tired, but okay.”
This week, someone I admire enormously wrote of her depression. Openly, honestly, and with great eloquence. Her reluctance in saying she was depressed is clear. Equally so, in my book, the courage of her act, and the example in taking action. I find myself asking why depression continues to be a source of stigma.
Sadness
In the same vein, another writer I admire speaks often of her sadness, as she did earlier this week. I understand this propensity for melancholy; it is part of my own nature, and I recognize it in hers. While less severe than depression per se, persistent sadness offers struggles of its own: a constancy of hiding your truest feelings, and the fatigue exacerbated by wearing the public face.
How ironic that in a culture where it’s become routine to search for “authenticity” – the need to be in touch with our here and now, or deeper selves, our spirituality – we continue to judge those who authentically express emotions we wish to deny, not to mention the complex causes that would require us to look at ourselves, our human relations, our morals, our politics.
Invisibility of all sorts
There are far more sources of stigma than homosexuality, depression, or sadness. What about homelessness, illness, or being poor? What about the invisibility of the elderly, the infirm, the overweight, or for that matter, the unattractive?
What about the stigma borne by women who are childless – either by choice or by circumstance?
What about the growing pressure to “be happy” – and the stigma in saying otherwise? Where is the authenticity in that?
We cluck our tongues and seek to assign fault so we may feel superior. We tell ourselves it will never happen to us. We pass by, marginalizing those who are right in our line of vision. How do we justify this behavior? When did moralizing replace morality?
The stigma of divorce, the woman alone, loneliness
Personally, I have known the stigma following divorce – what it is to be overwhelmed by it, and no longer welcome (however politely) where I once was. I know what it is to be a woman alone, and to be lonely. I know the stigma of job loss, the subtle shunning that follows a change in financial circumstances. The isolation that worsens everything.
As age lessens my marketability as a woman, certainly in the US, I understand yet another sort of invisibility, approaching with increasing speed.
I hope I will be brave enough to speak of it, despite the stigma in admitting to aging. To being a woman who is aging. I will do so with the fine examples of other women I read, and in the hope that we cease to judge so cruelly, to render others insignificant, or simply to walk away.
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Powerful words. I too spoke very little on my latest post about a stigma. Why is it that most times we as a people have to live within the stigmas to think we can understand? Why does it have to be first or second hand in order to empathize.
I fall under a few stigma categories myself. We are truly a society of being or at least portraying the best. When in reality, most of us are not at our best.. I love your way with words. You always seem to say what I am feeling at the same time I am feeling it most- thank you for the connection
A society of “portraying” the best. Thank you for seeing that, Notasoccermom. And for your kind words.
Stigma… I worried about this with my daughter – born out of marriage as she is. Fortunately, things have changed. It was, perhaps, more difficult for me than for her as I face the generations that are, in ways, more about stigmas than hers.
The bullying kids are experiencing these days saddens me. It is stunning to look at history and see how far we have come and yet how we have moved further in some directions that are less tolerant and accepting.
There is a push to be happy – not necessarily authentic… they are different and one allows for a bit of denial where another doesn’t. Authenticity isn’t always nice to look at in a society that is very much about sex appeal and quick fixes and superficiality. Authenticity is seeing the beauty in the shadows – and accepting that which lies beneath the surface.
@TE – I think you’re right that bullying is an increasing problem. And the push to be happy as you say, isn’t necessarily authentic. Thank you for sharing what you have about your daughter. It is good to know that stigma may well be disappearing, for the kids at least.
@ NoName – As usual some of your responses stagger me with their power and their honesty. And more that I recognize in my own life. And how many others see themselves as well in what you say? Thank you for the courage and care to say it.
@ Christine – your honesty inspires me. And sadly, I agree with you that we seem to have come far in some ways, but at the core, like you, I am uncertain.
Stigma”tas” that continue, because I am marked by them:
when a mother is alienated from a daughter — well, she must deserve this even if the mother seems so wonderfully ordinary and pleasant and kind and hard working and balanced and sane and beautiful. Because, children never lie nor nor our children ever mislead by circumstances or calculated and oddly casual deceit…
being middle-class poor — i am making peace with that and am stunned that I am poor. If you cannot fix your teeth because you buy auto insurance for a 17 year old son — well, doll baby, you be poor. When you appraise a family heirloom to sell to your siblings and they look at you uncomprenhendingly as in you should either keep it or give it to them, then you blurt, “But I am poor!” Poor is very different from “I cannot afford this.” or “I really shouldn’t” (And, yes, I live better that most in the world and many in this country….but, I am working three jobs to keep my head above water and I am not so very clear that treading to my chin is a gift. The alternative is drown. In six years, after last child is launched and touches base at home to look for a job, then what next? Sell everything and take care of the increasingly odd but wondrous Teddy Roosevelt of a father who may die in a box canyon while fishing solo and the cell phone battery gives out? Perhaps, because the family forces look to think this stigma for me:
divorcee-spinster-50ish….so, why not return to take care of Dad? What else will you do? That I am so poor that I must have to do this? Well, my goodness…could you ask or discuss rather than assume?
being quieter and sober after years of easy smiles and conversation — that is a stigma, to not be the smilin’, oyster shukin’ po… like Tiny Tim at Christmas in London or Ma on Little House with her shinin’ eyes of trust for Charles…
To review the stigmas:
mom without custody = must be a rotten-in-Denmark sort, despite appearances
middle-class water treading neighbor/worker/friend = very scary that this.really.happens
midlife un married person with children launching = surely, you willingly become Little Dorritt or Faithful Jane — how British Masterpiece theater of you!!!
sober person, whose smiles are smaller and more cautious = but, you are the one who organized everything — youth soccer, lasagna for illness… surely YOU do not need something?
—–
I will tell the truth here and for a while, then polish the cowboy boots and head out to ride the range… again and still… Vaya con Dios or even with a giggle Vaya con Queso…
And the grace with which you address this is stunning and humbling. Thank you my friend for your honesty, and support. You are raising the bar and raising awareness. It’s a really good thing. As a society we think we’ve come so far, but at the root I wonder. I think it’s the same trouble, just a different pile.
I’m grateful that you shared this. And I share your skepticism about a culture obsessed with authenticity that seems, really, to only be interested in “happiness.” Which is, of course, something we all want, though I find it a one-dimensional goal. Isn’t any fully-lived life going to include, by definition, some sadness as well? At least that is my view.
Thanks for making me feel less lonely.
xo
I read your beautiful words Lindsey, and see so much clarity, so much awareness, even in the questions. Thank you for that.
Very interesting discussion and comments. I read both Christine’s and Lindsay’s post this week and they both were honest, raw and necessary.
Stigma is something I didn’t quite understand until my father became sick. What’s baffling is that there is even stigma attached to disease and the dying. My father was so reluctant to reveal his battle with cancer and kept it a secret for four years. When at the end we finally made the decision to reveal his cancer, people asked what kind of cancer. My father had non-small cell lung cancer, but never smoked. Every time I mention lung cancer in reference to my father, I cushion it with, he didn’t smoke. I didn’t want people judging him. Maybe that is some of the reason why my father was not willing to divulge his fate. The judgment and sting of stigmas is too overwhelming to bear and the carelessness of people’s assumptions can cut to the core.
I am so sorry for what all of you had to go through with his disease. And this says so much: the carelessness of people’s assumptions can cut to the core.
Another great post, BLW, and one that has me thinking about the ways that many of us feel “other” due to internal and external pressures to be and act “same.” In my own life, the stigma I feel most is that of “stay-at-home mother.” I’m not sure if my working mother friends stigmatize me or if I stigmatize myself, but I feel a sense of otherness either way.
I join you in applauding Christine’s and Lindsey’s courage in writing about their struggles with depression and sadness. I know that I take great solace from their willingness to share their journeys.
Stigma wears many hats, as you’ve shown here, BLW. Can’t even begin to get into how timely this post is for me at the moment — too raw. It’s good to know someone else out there gets it, even though one would never wish that understanding through experience on anyone.
How about the stigma of driving my over-large SUV? Not very green of me. Seems to always be associated with “one up” – meaning someone’s ability to say I’m better than you because that “stigma” is a negative mark.
Smoker = weak
Over-weight = lazy
Diseased = broken
Etc…
And, I feel I should clarify – I was only citing examples – not how I feel!
🙂 (Chuckling at that one, Cathy!)
Stigmas are such a painful subject. I don’t know anyone who has felt no taint. So why do we bully others or ‘merely’ ignore them?
I was cruel to a boy when I was young (like 10) because he was different. And I am more embarrassed by that then anything I have done in my life since. And it was all to look ‘good’ in front of others.
I know I have not asked questions after certain friends, knowing that they are going through something. I felt uncomfortable. How do you ask a friend if they can pay their bills? How do you ask after a shaky marriage? What is the right question to ask when your new acquaintance tells you they have cancer? And yet, I hope I didn’t make them feel lesser or excluded or invisible. Oh, how I hope that.
There is a stigma associated with being married and childless. My husband and I have been happily married for 14 years did not have children – not by choice. When people ask me if I have kids and I say “no” they look all sad and say “oh, I’m sorry..” like I have a major disease. Strange…
Welcome Tracy, and thank you for joining the conversation. This issue is particularly odd to me. We penalize (criticize) those who we deem “bad parents.” We look askance at only children (and suggest a second child), and equally, are disapproving of those who genuinely want large families. We stigmatize women without children – by choice or otherwise. Is the only “acceptable” family the proverbial 2.5 children after all? Either 2 kids or 3 and you’re considered “normal,” but more or less and you’re selfish or excessive?
Strange phenomenon.
I am surprised whenever I hear any negative words towards divorced women. You’d think the statistics alone would have inoculated people from any reactions against this “identity”. Ugh. Of course I wonder whether there is a difference between divorced men and women? Speaking of stigmas, I think in some areas there is something against working mothers and their latchkey children: they are expected to be less well-brought-up? Growing up in Asia, it was definitely a stigma I lived with: more than once I was told that their mothers did not allow them to play with me because I was kind of like “motherless” since my mom worked… But of course, not in the US in 2010 right? *sigh*