Social Stigma Research Paper

Megan Shinham
Professor Belen
ENC1102
27 September 2016
Dispersing the Stigma, Finding a Cure
“The first time I had sex everything was a complete mistake, from the guy and his awful personality to his lack of condom. The scariest part about the situation was about a month later waiting for my test results to see if I was one of the many who suffer with STD’s and STI’s on a daily basis. Fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones who received a clean bill of health, but many others are not so lucky” (Shinham 1). In fact, around 2007 there were about 33,200,000 cases of people in the world with AIDS and the number has only risen since (Park 525). The diagnosis of AIDS not only comes with a lifelong affliction but also a severe social stigma. Society
Valdiserri stigma is a very complex problem that has longstanding ties with “gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and culture” it’s a difficult issue to comprehend or easily attend to; stigma is likewise not a new issue in physical health, in reality, there have been many times throughout the years where people who are, or look, ill are targets of discrimination and prejudice (Valdiserri 341-2). Expanding on that there are two types of stigma felt and perceived. “Felt stigma refers to real or imagined fear of societal attitudes and potential discrimination arising from a particular undesirable attribute, disease (such as HIV), or association with a particular group or behavior (e.g., homosexuality and promiscuity). For example, an individual may deny his/her risk of HIV or refuse to disclose HIV status for fear of the possible negative reactions of family, friends, and community… Enacted stigma refers to the real experience of discrimination. For example, the disclosure of an individual's HIV-positive status could lead to loss of a job, health benefits, or social ostracism” (Brown 50). AIDS’ stigma applies to both the fear of judgment, and the discernment faced. One of the main felt stigma’s surrounding AIDS stems from the misconstrued stereotype that a person who has a lot of sex must have some sort of disease, that is when the perceived or enacted stigma comes into play. Those people who are deemed to be ‘dirty’ are then shunned as ‘unclean’
In fact, in 1999, one out of five people said in a survey that they feared persons with AIDS. One in six felt disgust towards people with AIDS (Valdiserri 341). This is due to the normality of this type of intolerance and judgment in today’s society. Children are taught from childhood that premarital sex is immoral, and so, if one choses to partake in that practice whatever happens to them is their fault. The example felt stigma discussed earlier also contributes to this seeing as AIDS holds the erroneous stereotype that it is contracted by promiscuous people, when, as mentioned earlier, AIDS is not specifically contracted by any specific type or person, just people doing specific types of things.
The current process put in place for AIDS’ stigma is, judge those who might have it, judge those who have it, and hide everything about it in the shadows. Continuing this cycle there will be many more cases, and ultimately fewer discoveries to help those already in this situation. The proposition is simple, learn about AIDS, its stigma, and stop judging others who have or are at risk of having AIDS, to save the many cases of people who might or already have encountered this virus. Ironically it seems to be a conundrum; the stigma disperses with a cure and the cure is being prevented by the