Stigma and Shame

Stigma and shame are social markers imposed on a specific group of people, consciously or unconsciously, purposefully or not, by collective mechanisms that assign low social value (stigma — externally imposed) to these people or groups of people, which can lead to painful feelings of low self-esteem (shame — internally imposed).

Stigma arises from external judgmental behavior and attitudes: We are not like them or Those people. This behavior could be individual, collective, or institutional. Being othered leads to social isolation and internalized self-blame or self-oppression.

"Who cares about me? Anyway, I am worthless."

People living with the multiple hardships of poverty are made to feel ashamed of their living conditions, yet they generally have very little or no control over these conditions.

The stigma and shame phenomenon is a social construct that is internalized by institutions, too. For example, schools can determine the social value given to someone’s identity: Which school do you go to? Are you an at-risk student or a difficult child? Failing schools in disadvantaged areas leave their former students suffering from low social value, low wages, and bleak prospects.

“Here in the U.S. who you are is defined by what you have. When you have not much, you are not much.”

Stigma arising from the multiple hardships of poverty intersects with other types of discrimination that reinforce one another (for example, race and ethnicity, gender, national origin, sexual identity, immigration status, and religion). But for some people, socio-economic standing seems to be the most consequential circumstance and the most difficult to overcome in a group.

"At an event I attended, the wealthy gay shunned the poor gay even though we were all there to support the same cause."

This type of othering prompts the respectability politics that sustains the phenomenon of social differentiation: They are not like us.