Stigma Management Among Gay/Bisexual Men with HIV/AIDS

People with HIV infection are subjected to prejudice, discrimination and hostility related to the stigmatization of AIDS. To manage the stigma of their disease, they mount complex coping strategies. This paper reports results from a qualitative study that examined gay/bisexual men's experiences of living with HIV infection. Unstructured interviews from a diverse sample of 139 men were analyzed to examine how men coped with AIDS-related stigma. We discerned a variety of stigma management strategies that could be arranged along a continuum from reactive to proactive based on the extent to which they implicitly accepted or challenged the social norms and values that underlie the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS. Reactive strategies to cope with stigma involve defensive attempts to avoid or mitigate the impact of stigma, but imply acceptance of the underlying social norms and values that construct the stigma. Examples of reactive strategies include hiding one's HIV status, presenting one's illness as a less stigmatizing one (e.g., cancer), or distancing one's self from more damaging aspects of AIDS-stigma (e.g., attributing infection to blood transfusion). Proactive strategies challenge the validity of the stigma and imply disavowal and resistance of the social norms and values that underlie the stigma. Examples of proactive strategies include engaging in public educational efforts that address misperceptions about HIV transmission and social activism to change the social and political conditions that affect PWA/HIV.     

Asian Girls are Prettier: Gendered Presentations as Stigma Management among Gay Asian Men

Despite the well‐documented cases of racism toward gay Asian men in the gay community, there is currently little research on how gay Asian men manage racial stigma. In this article, I examine the racial stigma management strategies of gay Asian men. I examine the nature of gay racial stigma toward gay Asian men and find that they use gendered presentations to counter the stereotype that they are more feminine than gay white men. While some gay Asian men engender a hypermasculine presentation, others use a hyperfeminine presentation to trade a more‐stigmatized status for one that is less stigmatizing. More important, these men actively embrace stereotypes to successfully make these transitions. This article demonstrates that stigmatized groups can manage stigma by highlighting their spoiled identities rather than attempting to minimize them.     

On the Margins of the Periphery: Unassisted Childbirth and the Management of Layered Stigma

This article examines an unusual practice—unassisted childbirth—and the ways in which advocates and practitioners manage the stigma they are accorded. Given their “doubly deviant” status as not only women who birth at home but also as women who choose to give birth without professional assistance, these women provide a unique case for our theoretical understanding of stigma management. As members of homebirth social networks, the women must reckon with what I term layered stigma, the broad stigma of homebirth as well as the deeper in-group stigma within their deviant community that results from their rejection of midwives as appropriate care providers. By examining the dynamics of stigma management among practitioners of unassisted childbirth, I highlight the complex, situation-dependent nature of stigma and the impact of its management on women's sense of self.     

听障青少年的污名及其应对策略

任何人类差异都可能成为污名的对象。在社会差别的分类审视下,听障青少年遭遇的污名类型多种多样。从综合视角来看,可分为三类:形象可怕怪异,令人恐惧;身体无用低能,形同朽木;境遇窘迫不堪,让人可怜。在面对这些污名威胁时,他们管理身体与预设的规则体系进行周旋,业已发展出三种污名应对技术:一是身体改造,常态身体的追求;二是身体装扮,秘密信息的管理;三是身体抗争,弱者的对话方式。研究此问题,不仅有利于我们走进听障群体的世界,帮助他们远离污名的困扰,也可以增加社会的相互理解、信任与支持,推动社会的和谐融合。     

Strategies Used by Gay and Bisexual Young Men to Cope With Heterosexism

ABSTRACT

Although the pervasiveness of heterosexism in the lives of gay and bisexual youth is well established, little is known about the strategies these youth use to cope with stigma and discrimination based on their sexual minority status. In this qualitative study, the authors present findings and implications for clinical practice based on interviews with 43 gay and bisexual young men. Respondents’ coping strategies are discussed in relation to current theory and research on coping with stigma, as well as the emerging field of emotion regulation. The narratives from the current study suggest that the emotion regulation paradigm is well suited to understanding the functions of strategies for coping with heterosexism and similar types of stigma.     

Strategies Used by Gay and Bisexual Young Men to Cope with Heterosexism

Although the pervasiveness of heterosexism in the lives of gay and bisexual youth is well established, little is known about the strategies these youth use to cope with stigma and discrimination based on their sexual minority status. In this qualitative study, the authors present findings and implications for clinical practice based on interviews with 43 gay and bisexual young men. Respondents' coping strategies are discussed in relation to current theory and research on coping with stigma, as well as the emerging field of emotion regulation. The narratives from the current study suggest that the emotion regulation paradigm is well suited to understanding the functions of strategies for coping with heterosexism and similar types of stigma.     

In the flesh: a poetic inquiry into how fat female employees manage weight-related stigma

ABSTRACT

This paper engages with the question of how fat female employees manage weight-related stigma at work. We use poetic inquiry to show the reader how it feels for our participants to be stigmatized based on their size. We interviewed 22 women who self-identify as full-figured, fat, overweight, or obese. The results consist of six poems, five of which were written by us, the researchers. These ‘tri-voiced poems’ (Leavy 2010b) illustrate the spectrum of affective responses and stigma management strategies that our participants talked about, ranging from feeling anxious, super-smart, impeccable, and funny to rebellious and confident. The sixth poem was written by one of our participants and voices her first-person experiences and perspective. Our aim is to do justice in our writing to the emotions that circulated in the interviews and to make a political statement with regards to the stigmatizing practices in organizations related to size and health.     

Managing impressions of an AIDS service organization: Into the mainstream or out of the closet?

Organizations, like individuals, can be discreditable and potentially stigmatized. This can affect both the members of the organization and its operation. This study examines how workers in an AIDS service organization in Ontario, Canada, manage its public image as a way of dealing with the stigma which surrounds much of their work. Using data from in-depth interviews with staff members and volunteers, the study describes worker concerns about the appearance of being too closely associated with the local gay and lesbian community and documents some of the strategies they employed to manage the organization's public image. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship between organizational impression management and viability in the context of the stigma and uncertainty which surrounds the HIV epidemic.     

Stigma and problem gambling: current knowledge and future research directions

Stigma has been identified as a major barrier to help-seeking, treatment and recovery from gambling problems. However, little research has attempted to examine in any depth the causes, characteristics and consequences of stigma in relation to people experiencing gambling problems. The effects of stigma on people experiencing gambling problems, although not directly examined, are apparent through low rates of problem disclosure and treatment-seeking. In this paper, we aim to inform research into stigma associated with problem gambling by highlighting gaps in existing research and by providing direction for future research. The contribution of this paper is that for the first time stigma and problem gambling are drawn together and reviewed using broad constructs and literature from a range of seminal and new sources to present a synthesis of new and important information on stigma. In regard to problem gambling, the dimensions of stigma, except for origin, have yet to be investigated, as well as the processes of stigma creation, the characteristics of public and felt stigma, and coping strategies used to manage stigma. The practical implications of this review are summarized in a framework provided to inform future research into stigma related to problem gambling.     

“We are not strippers”: How Belly Dancers Manage a (Soft) Stigmatized Serious Leisure Activity

Most stigma research examines people who engage in deviant activities or possess visible and permanent discredited attributes, which lead to “hard” or severe consequences. Existing leisure studies focus on the benefits of leisure pursuits. Less attention is paid to the potential costs associated with serious leisure, such as “soft” stigma. The snubs and slight embarrassments resulting from soft stigma may jeopardize the rewards people receive from participating in leisure, such as a sense of identity, self‐worth, and pride. Using interviews with seventy‐four female belly dancers, most of whom belly dance as a form of “serious leisure,” this article examines how dancers manage perceptions that they are erotic dancers. Results show that dancers use an interesting set of stigma management techniques and new forms of some existing management strategies to simultaneously protect themselves and enhance the reputation of the group. Implications for how people negotiate soft stigma associated with serious leisure are discussed.     

“Becoming a Parent Changes Everything”: How Nonbeliever and Pagan Parents Manage Stigma in the U.S. Bible Belt

Despite the increasing visibility of secularism and alternative religions in the United States, few have paid attention to the relationship between family roles and religious identity outside of mainstream Christian denominations. Guided by insights from theories of identity work, I compare stigma management strategies by two religiously marginalized groups. Based on participant-observation, in-depth interviews, and textual analysis, I show how nonbeliever and Pagan parents in the Bible Belt respond to perceived threats to their moral identities as “good parents.” Nonbeliever and Pagan parents manage their spoiled identities by engaging in defensive othering amongst subordinates, a form of stigma management, to distance themselves from discrediting stereotypes—specifically the “militant atheist” and the “hedonistic Pagan.” I demonstrate that access to greater financial and cultural capital (nonbeliever parents) allows for reliance on defensive othering to massage interpersonal relations, whereas access to low levels of financial and cultural capital (Pagan parents), prompts the need to rely on defensive othering as a matter of survival. Becoming a parent changes the dynamic of stigma management for individuals; pushing individual parents away from social justice activism and ultimately undercutting broader social movements for equality.     

Intersections of Stigma,Mental Health,and Sex Work: How Canadian Men Engaged in Sex Work Navigate and Resist Stigma to Protect Their Mental Health

Men engaged in sex work experience significant stigma that can have devastating effects for their mental health. Little is known about how male sex workers experience stigma and its effects on mental health or their strategies to prevent its effects in the Canadian context. This study examined the interrelationships between stigma and mental health among 33 Canadian indoor, male sex workers with a specific goal of understanding how stigma affected men’s mental health and their protective strategies to mitigate against its effects. Men experienced significant enacted stigma that negatively affected their social supports and ability to develop and maintain noncommercial, romantic relationships. Men navigated stigma by avoidance and resisting internalization. Strategy effectiveness to promote mental health varied based on men’s perspectives of sex work as a career versus a forced source of income. Programming to promote men’s mental health must take into consideration men’s diverse strategies and serve to build social supports.     

Managing occupational identity threats and job turnover: How former and current fundraisers manage moments of stigmatized identities

Maintaining a strong group of fundraisers amidst high turnover rates is essential to the financial health of nonprofit organizations. One issue potentially harming fundraisers' success and continued presence in the field is the negative reputation sometimes associated with fundraising work. This exploratory study uses Stigma Management Communication Theory and content analysis of in‐depth interviews with current and former university fundraisers to investigate how fundraisers communicatively manage stigmatizing messages associated with their occupation. The findings suggest that current fundraisers use a greater number and variety of stigma management strategies than former fundraisers described using. The findings also highlight the potential consequences and distinctions among ways of using humor to manage stigma messages. These findings can be translated into orientation and training programs for fundraisers, teaching them successful ways of framing their occupations and work.     

Migration status and transnational mothering: the case of Filipino migrants in France

Recent studies on transnational mothering have explored the various strategies migrant women use to negotiate their absence from home; however, there is limited knowledge on how migration status diversifies transnational mothering practices. To fill this gap, I conducted in‐depth interviews and observations of Filipino migrant mothers working in the domestic service sector in and around Paris. The consequences of migration include the prolongation of a planned stay in France, emotional difficulties due to family separation, and distant mother–child relationships. Transnational family life appears more complicated and difficult to manage for undocumented migrant mothers since they cannot easily visit their family back home, which they try to compensate by resorting to more intense transnational communication and gift‐giving practices. Hence, migration status plays an important role in shaping transnational motherhood.     

Doing Gender Well and Differently in Dirty Work: The Case of Exotic Dancing

This article explores how a group of exotic dancers do gender and manage the stigma associated with their work and identities. We draw upon stigma management strategies from the dirty work literature and illuminate the doing of gender in these strategies. We also contribute to the debate that gender can be done well and differently through simultaneous, multiple enactments of femininity and masculinity. We consider the experiences of 21 exotic dancers working in a chain of UK exotic dancing clubs and conclude that in order to be good at their job, exotic dancers are expected to do gender well, that is, perform exaggerated expressions of femininity. However, we also theorize that for some dirty workers, specifically exotic dancers as sex workers, doing gender well will not be enough to reposition bad girls (bad, dirty work) into good girls (good, clean work). Finally, we propose that doing gender well will have different consequences in different types of work, thereby extending our findings to other dirty work occupations and organizations in general.     

Financial management in long-term low-income households: comparing perspectives of professionals and families in Portugal

Long-term low-income households face economic hardship, together with a lack of opportunities, which restrict their social participation. There is a widely held belief among professionals that these households poorly manage their finances. This exploratory study aims to gain a deeper understanding of these households' difficulties and strategies of family financial management in Portugal, taking into account the perspectives of both members of the households and professionals. Comparing viewpoints is relevant in order to identify how they might be informing interactions and interventions. A qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews was used; the sample comprised 10 household members and 10 professionals. The main findings suggest that professionals believe these households demonstrate insufficient management strategies, while household members report struggling to manage insufficient resources. These distinctive views seem to facilitate interaction patterns characterized by mutual distrust, which should be taken into consideration when designing interventions, particularly concerning financial management.     

The Intersection of Multiple Minority Identities: Perspectives of White Lesbian Couples Adopting Racial/Ethnic Minority Children

In order to analyse the salience of race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and adoptive status for lesbian adoptive parents, this study examined the challenges and strengths described by 20 White lesbian couples (40 women) who were adopting racial/ethnic minority children from within the United States. Data from two time points (pre‐ and post‐adoptive placement) were analysed qualitatively. Results indicated that the majority of women voiced concerns about raising racial/ethnic minority children in a ‘White privileged’ society. Many women reported facing a lack of understanding from others and were aware of multiple layers of stigma. However, having faced discrimination themselves as sexual minorities, many also perceived themselves as possessing unique strengths (e.g., experience coping with stigma). Many women expressed feeling that by drawing on support from their communities as well as their own awareness of and experience with diversity issues, they could prepare their children for the challenges they might face.     

Fat on Campus: Fat College Students and Hyper(in)visible Stigma

This article examines fat college students’ experiences of stigma. Fourteen college students and recent graduates describe their experiences of discrimination and stigma during their college careers. From these interviews, themes of hyper(in)visibility, anticipated stigma, spaces where stigma is more salient, and stigma management emerged. Fat students experience hyper(in)visibility: They are simultaneously hypervisible and invisible, on campus. This experience is impacted by gender and age. This hyper(in)visibility—combined with past experienced stigma—created a sense of anticipated stigma in students. Experiences of hyper(in)visiblity and anticipated stigma are made more salient by the size and shape of various campus spaces: classrooms, dining halls, student recreation centers, and recreational drinking spaces. Fat students often managed this stigma by avoiding these spaces and withdrawing from campus life. Students also embraced other stigma-resistance strategies and found peer groups and campuses spaces to facilitate this resistance.     

The dynamics of welfare stigma

Drawing on the symbolic interactionist tradition, this paper focuses on the construction and management of welfare stigma in female welfare recipients' daily lives. In-depth interviews with ten women on welfare are analyzed, particularly in terms of how respondents manage their use of food stamps as stigma symbols. The complex and often contradictory pictures the women in this study painted of their feelings of stigma do not support the assumption, which underlies most research on welfare stigma, that welfare stigma is a coherent and relatively constant entity. The results of this study suggest instead that welfare stigma may vary depending on the social audience, situation, and recipient's life history. This analysis suggests that a symbolic interactionist approach to studying welfare stigma illuminates complex and dynamic aspects of welfare stigma that are obscured in other approaches and that future research on welfare stigma would benefit from drawing on the symbolic interactionist tradition.     

Gender Stereotypes and the Reshaping of Stigma in Rehabilitative Eldercare

Rehabilitation policies are becoming increasingly popular in eldercare as a means to ensure dignity and reduce costs. This paper examines the implications of rehabilitation within Danish homecare work, a type of work that is often stigmatized due to its associations with low‐status ‘dirty’ body work in old people's homes. The paper combines two research traditions: studies of dirty work and studies of body work. It draws on observations and focus groups in Denmark to explore how the introduction of rehabilitation changes the work of care workers, and how such changes are associated with a potential reshaping of stigma. In contrast to previous research, this paper shows that although rehabilitation was partly introduced to reduce stigma of this type of work, the practice of rehabilitation paradoxically reinforces the stigma that it attempts to manage. Thus, the analysis helps to improve our understanding of the ambiguous and varying ways rehabilitative eldercare reshapes and reinforces stigma and gender stereotypes among women who do ‘dirty’ body work.