Quotes About Stigma

I think virginity is fine, just as I think having sex is fine. I don't really care what women do sexually, and neither should you. In fact, that's the point. I believe that a young woman's decision to have sex, or not, shouldn't impact how she's seen as a moral actor.

Still, somehow, inexplicably, "man-hater" is a word tossed around with insouciance as if this was a real thing that did harm. Meanwhile we have no word for men who kill women. Is the word just "men"?

So where does this come from, this dirty double standard? Pathologizing women's bodies and sexuality is certainly nothing new; from "hysteria"* to fears about menstruation, women have been considered the "dirtier" sex for a long time *The word "hysteria" actually comes from the antiquated idea that women's emotional problems were derived from the uterus

But when articles about the sexual infection rates of African American women are one column over from an article about young white women's spring break, a disturbing cultural narrative is reinforced--that "innocent" white girls are being lured into an oversexualized culture, while young black women are already part of it.

In Sanskrit, "independent woman" is a synonym for a harlot. Hence the woman who is unattached to a man is not only a universal feminine type but a sacral type in antiquity.

the words of young Ted Kennedy, Jr., who lost his leg to cancer. People are taught we should look perfect, he said. I wondered who would ever go out with a kid with one leg.

That is the way a whore talks. A whore is also a woman, but I am not a whore. You'll be one. Not through you.

had two reasons. Ned was by himself in this world, except for me, and I didn't want no man and no children spiting him just because he was an orphan. The other reason I never looked at a man, I was barren. An old woman on the place had told me that. I went to her one day and told her how my body act and didn't act. After we had sat down and talked a while, she said one word: "Barren." I went to a doctor and he told me the same thing: "You barren, all right.

For years the scar, harelip or misshapen nose has been looked on as a handicap, and its importance in the social and emotional adjustment is unconsciously all embracing. It is the "hook" on which the patient has hung all inadequacies, all dissatisfactions, all procrastinations and all unpleasant duties of social life, and he has come to depend on it not only as a reasonable escape from competition but as a protection from social responsibility.

That file full of letters meant I met with a Special Needs teacher in the hallway to get something called Individualized Attention, and let me tell you, working in the hallway with a teacher is like being the street person of a school. People pass you by, and they act like they don't see you, but three steps away they've got a whole story in their heads about why you're out there instead of in the nice cozy classroom where you belong, Stupid? Unlucky? Unloved?

Once divorce carried all the stigma. Now, choosing to stay when you can leave is the new shame.

Our fears are informed by history and economics, by social power and stigma, by myths and nightmares. And as with other strongly held beliefs, our fears are dear to us. When we encounter information that contradicts our beliefs, as Slovic found in one of his studies, we tend to doubt the information, not ourselves.

Fear is isolating for those that fear. And I have come to believe that fear is a cruelty to those who are feared.

we must first overcome cultural prejudice. Our society respects someone's throwing himself into sports, but anybody who works very long hours is regarded as sick, a workaholic. So the prejudices of the majority say that sports are good and fun, but work is drudgery, a necessary evil, and in no way a source of pleasure.

In both cases, it is the prejudice, not the condition, that does the harm. It may be, as some would have it, that blacks are inherently inferior to whites or that homosexuals are all, by definition, sick. So what? Even if either condition truly is inherently undesirable, no manner of social pressure will turn blacks into whites or gays into straights. Social pressure will only exaggerate the handicap. It is still the prejudice, more than the condition, that does the harm.

Porque é que estão a olhar assim para mim? As mulheres não precisam de dinheiro. Para que é que elas haviam de precisar? Não bebem, não jogam aos dados, e elas próprias, que diabos, são mulheres.

I don't think the money people in Hollywood have ever thought I was normal, but I am dedicated to my work and that's what counts.

Men can bury their past. An unmarried woman is her past. Whereas a wife has a social position. A spinster has none.

If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters.

The thing is, one in three women in the Western world will end up having an abortion, but they never talk about it. When you keep silent about that stuff, it is because you are embarrassed by the societal distaste of the topic.

If Joy Behar or Sherri Shepherd was a dude, they'd be off TV. They're not funny enough for dudes. What if Roseanne Barr was a dude? Think we'd know who she was?

People don't know. People are ignorant. They feel that if you stutter, then you're slow or whatnot.

Bald guys have been playing the bad guy for a long time, whether it's pirates, thieves, murderers, or whatnot, so the deck is a little bit stacked against you in that regard.

For many many years, the MMA world shunned on the pro wrestling world. They shunned on us for getting action figures and whatnot.