Constructing the “Other”

Rosenblum Pages 25-40 and

Dichotomizing Sexual Orientation

– Alfred Kinsey: • Sexuality and sexual behavior exist along a continuum

– There is not always a correspondence between identity and sexual behavior

– Like the construction of race, sexual orientation can function as an essential identity and be assigned to an individual irrespective of her or his actual behavior.• Because no behavior can ever conclusively prove that one is not

gay, this label is an extremely effective mechanism of social control.

Dichotomizing Class• Americans almost never speak of themselves in class terms. Why?

– When it is spoken of, how is class dichotomized?

• Since 1970, the distribution of wealth and income among Americans has become increasingly unequal.

• Many talk about social class as if it were the result of personal values and attitudes, and that lack of effort by the poor was the principle reason for poverty. Social class standing is taken to reveal one’s core worth—a strikingly essentialist formula.– Fosters contempt for the poor

• What % of the American public believe that “a lack of effort” if the principle reason for people living in poverty?

Dichotomizing Sex

• Sex? Gender?

• Just as with race and sexual orientation, people are assigned to the categories of female or male irrespective of inconsistent or ambiguous evidence.

• Rather than recognize complexity, we commonly assume that there are two and only two sexes and that people can be easily classified as one or the other (Kessler and McKenna).

Dichotomizing Disability

• How is disability dichotomized?– I.e.: “1 in 10 people has this disease”…”43 million

people with a disability…”

• How is “disability” relative?

Constructing the “other”

• Dichotomization promotes the idea of the mythical “other”. – Who is the “other”?

– Stigmatization of those with less power

– Entire categories become objects of contempt• I.e.: The poor

Constructing the “Other”

• Expectation of profound difference

– The “opposite” sex– The class wars– “us” vs. “them”

• Differences in behaviors, perception, personality, and performance

Sanctioning those who associate with the “Other”

– What is a sanction?• What happens to those who hang out with the

other?

• Social labeling/marking/naming is a effective social control mechanism

Stigma

• Ancient Greece: Being ‘marked’ as bad, unworthy or polluted

– Objectification

– Devaluation

• Example: Stigmatization of Women– How are women objectified?– How are stereotypical characteristics of women devalued?

Characteristics of men valued?

• What is paternalism and how does it relate to disability and stigma attached to disability?

Stereotypes about People in Stigmatized master statuses

– What is a stereotype?• People in stigmatized master statuses often:– Are presumed to lack the values that the culture

holds dear– Are likely to be seen as a problem– Are stereotyped as lacking self control– Are marked as having too much or too little

intelligence– Are characterized as childlike and savagely brutal