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of spoken encounters constantly redirect attention to the defect, constantly making demands for
clear and rapid messages that must constantly be defaulted. It may be added that the same
failing can have different expressions, each with a different degree of obtrusiveness. For
example, a blind person with a white cane gives quite visible evi-'dence that he is blind; but this
stigma symbol, once noted, can sometimes be disattended, along with what it signifies. But the
blind person's failure to direct his face to the eyes of his co-participants is an event that
repeatedly violates communication etiquette and repeatedly disrupts the feed-back mechanics of
spoken interaction.
Thirdly, the visibility of a stigma (as well as its obtrusiveness) must be disentangled from
certain possibilities of what can be called its `perceived focus'. We normals develop conceptions,
whether objectively grounded or not, as to the sphere of life-activity for which an individual's
particular stigma primarily disqualifies him. Ugliness, for example, has its initial and prime
effect during social situations, threaten-
((66))
ing the pleasure we might otherwise take in the company of its possessor. We perceive, however,
that his condition ought to have no effect on his competency in solitary tasks, although of course
we may discriminate against him here simply because of the feelings we have about looking at
him. Ugliness, then, is a stigma that is focused in social situations. Other stigmas, such as a
diabetic condition,14 are felt to have no initial effect on the individual's qualifications for face-
to-face interaction; they lead, us first to discriminate in such matters as job allocation, and affect
immediate social interaction only, for example, because the stigmatized individual may have
attempted to keep his differentness a secret and feels unsure about being able to do so, or because
the others present know about his condition and are making a painful effort not to allude to it.
Many other stigmas fall in between these two extremes regarding focus, being perceived to have
a broad initial effect in many different areas of life. For example, a person with cerebral palsy
may not only be seen as burdensome in face-to-face communication, but may also induce the
feeling that he is questionable as a solitary task performer.
The question of visibility, then, must be distinguished from some other issues : the known-
about-ness of the attribute, its obtrusiveness, and its perceived focus. This still leaves
unconsidered the tacit assumption that somehow the public at large will be engaged in the
viewing. But as we shall see, specialists at uncovering identity can be involved, and their training
may allow them to be immediately struck by something that is invisible to the laity. A physician
who meets on the street a man with dull red discoloration of the cornea and notched teeth is
meeting someone who openly displays two of Hutchinson's signs and is likely to be syphilitic.
((footnote))
14. `A Reluctant Pensioner', `Unemployed Diabetic', in Toynbee,
Ø. cit., ChaP" 9, PP. 12-46.
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Others present, however, being medically blind, will see no evil. In general, then, the decoding
capacity of the audience must be specified before one can speak of degree of visibility.
Personal Identity
In order systematically to consider the situation of the discreditable person and his problem of
concealment and disclosure, it was necessary first to examine the character of social information
and of visibility. Before proceeding it will be necessary to consider, and at considerable length,
still another factor, that of identification  in the criminological and not the psychological
sense.
So far, the analysis of social interaction between the stigmatized and the normal has not
required that those involved in the mixed contact know one another `personally' before the
interaction begins. This seems reasonable. Stigma management is an offshoot of something
basic in society, the stereotyping or `profiling' of our normative expectations regarding conduct
and character; stereotyping is classically reserved for customers, orientals, and motorists, that is,
persons who fall into very broad categories and who may be passing strangers to us.
There is a popular notion that although impersonal contacts between strangers are particularly
subject to stereotypical responses, as persons come to be on closer terms with each other this
categoric approach recedes and gradually sympathy, understanding, and a realistic assess-ment
of personal qualities take its place." While a blemish such as a facial disfigurement might put off
a stranger, intimates presumably would not be put off by such matters.
((footnote))
15. A traditional statement of this theme maybe found in N. S. Shaler, The Neighbor, Boston,
Houghton Mifflin, 1904.
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The area of stigma management, then, might be seen as something that pertains mainly to public
life, to contact between strangers or mere acquaintances, to one end of a continuum whose other
pole is intimacy.
The idea of such a continuum no doubt has some validity. For example, it has been shown that
in addition to techniques for handling strangers, the physically handicapped may develop special
techniques for moving past the initial tactfulness and distance they are likely to receive; they may
attempt to move on to a more `personal' plane where in fact their defect will cease to be a crucial
factor  an arduous process Fred Davis calls `breaking through'.16 Further, those with whom
they have repeated dealings will gradually come to be less put off by the disability, so that
something like a daily round of normalization may hopefully develop. A blind person's round
may be cited :
There are now barbershops where I am received with some of the calmness of old, of course, and
hotels, restaurants, and public buildings which I can enter without engendering a feeling that
something is going to happen; a few trolley motormen and bus drivers now merely wish me
Good Morning when I get on with my dog, and a few waiters I know serve me with traditional
un-concern. Naturally, the immediate circle of my family has long since ceased doing any
unnecessary worrying about me, and so have most of my intimate friends. To that extent I have
made a dent in the education of the world.l"
The same sheltering can presumably occur in regard to whole categories of the stigmatized : the
service shops which are sometimes found in the immediate neighbour-hood of mental hospitals [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]