The world we live in today is made up of very diverse individuals and populations. Each person and population has it’s own set of norms that are learned through experiences starting at a very early age. Because of this, defining difference is very subjective; it is based on each person’s unique perspective. It is important to understand the concepts of difference in your own life and the lives of others as a social worker in order to fully understand and prevent oppression from occurring.
Definition of Difference
Look up the word “difference” in a dictionary. If you use the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (n.d.), the first entry is “the quality that makes one person or thing unlike another.” This definition seems like such a simple explanation for a word that is culturally interpreted as being very complex and usually caries a negative connotation. While some view difference as a negative thing, I view it as something to be embraced by all. Difference is what makes each person truly unique. If everyone on earth has the same beliefs, attitudes, personalities, and appearance than life would be very mundane.
Society attempts to understand and define the differences that each individual has by categorizing those differences, such as labeling a person’s race, sexual orientation, and social-class, among others. We see the differences and then we name them
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People assume if you have nice things, a good house, and a nice car, and fancy clothes then you are automatically rich. Similarly, if you don’t have many possessions or live in a decent neighborhood than you are classified as poor. This leaves out a huge population of people, especially in America: the middle class. Even within the middle class there are varying levels of categorization, such as upper middle class, lower middle class, working class, etc. Saying that there are only two categories, skews the view of the American
The main problem, when talking about either class, is that society tends to attach stigmas to each one. If someone is rich, they are a selfish person. If someone is poor, they have no ambition. People want to blame the rich for being rich and the poor for being poor.
Social difference advocates believe that if you have a disability, that it is unimportant outside the response to those conditions. Social difference advocates take as their focus, social reaction to that of signaling difference. They are saying that if you are not recognized as someone who has a disability then there would be no judgements and everyone would be treated equally all the time. Social difference advocates of the medical model argue “between limits resulting from accident, age, or injury and those that affect a person from birth”
These categories often include our race, class, gender, income and our educational level. More often than not we are generalized by what category we fall under. However, these categories are the ones that society sees us as, but it’s not what defines us as a person. “A friend argues that Americans battle between the ‘historical self’ and the ‘self self.’” (Rankine 104). We can say that our “historical self” is what people view us as. Not only is it the category we fall under it’s the stereotypes that have managed to travel time and stick with us regardless of us not having lived during the time they were initially created. Our “historical self” is how we are perceived by people who don’t know us. On the other hand our “self-self” is the person we initially are. It’s the person who our family and close friends know us as. It’s our personality, our attitude and who we really are as a person. Nevertheless our “self-self” doesn’t have the power to protect us from what we are genuinely seen as. “however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning.” (Rankine 104). We can tell ourselves that society isn’t what defines us but there’s going to be times where you realize that people see you as nothing more than the label society puts on
Our lives are defined by our experiences of growing up and of who people are when people are developing. Both, in their respective regards, are something that can be difficult to alter to the individual. Gender, race, classes, and other building blocks of our identity are always shifting to who anyone is and while a person can’t affect themselves, society can, and often does change their perspective towards their own identity and how they interact with the stimulation outside of their psyche.
Throughout the history of mankind there have been numerous cases in which people were victims of oppression or hate. Among these cases the sole reasoning behind this oppression or hate being based on the perception of others. History has shown that society is responsible for labeling groups of people, generally these labels are misleading.
For instance, relating to the employment, there were two obvious hierarchical differences between the black and the white, and women and men. According to Kimberle (2015), in the late 1970, the employment opportunities for black people and women were still in the straitened circumstance, furthermore, even if there were chances for them, “... the black job were men’s job, and the women’s job were only for whites.” (Kimberle Cranshaw 2015). In other words, there was no opportunity for the black women. In this case, the unjust discriminatory treatment for black women simply resulted from their intersected identities as a “black” and “woman” both were marginalized in the society. In regard to this, however, the important point is that people did not analyze the cause of this situation through considering it from the both racial and sexual sides simultaneously. People ignored the experience of the others, and categorized the black women based on their sex as a “woman”. In other words, people, especially who were in the privileged position, just neglected the subtle “differences” of others, and they stretched the rules to their own advantages. Relating to these “differences”, Audre Lorde (1984: 115) explains that “ But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the
In her book, Difference Matters, Brenda Allen discusses the importance of identity in an individual and in society. She addresses specific factors, from age to social class, that affect society. In her first chapter, more specifically, she talks about these factors as a whole in introducing the why differences matter. She then lays out the issues associated with differences in society. There are misinterpretations and misconceptions that become problematic between the relationship with individuals and society. This chapter is perfect for my topic because it shows that people differ from
Race, in the common understanding, draws upon differences not only of skin color and physical attributes but also of language, nationality, and religion. Race categories are often used as ethnic intensifiers, with the aim of justifying the exploitation of one group by another. Race is an idea that has become so fixed in American society that there is no room for open-mindedness when challenging the idea of racial categories. Over the years there has been a drastic change with the way the term "race" is used by scientists. Essentially, there is a major difference between the biological and sociological views of race.
I have grown to appreciate diversity and I seek out opportunities that will increase my competency in this area. While working with diverse populations I have learned that diversity represents individual and human differences that impact how we problem-solve, work, and learn. Often times we sum diversity into three main categories, race, gender and ethnicity; however, diversity is expanding and we must include all aspects of diversity. There are several factors that distinguishes us and the dimensions of diversity may be hidden or visible. They may remain constant or fluctuate as life changes and they may not be easily defined. Social workers must embrace diversity as well as its dimensions and understand that diversity is multidimensional.
Social justice is a core value in the social work field. We define social justice as, “all citizens would possess equal fundamental rights, protection, opportunities, obligations and social benefits (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2015, p. 29). Unfortunately, we understand there are many members in today’s society that are not receiving social justice. Some may not want help and believe that s/he is able to do it on their own and then there are the individuals that we may not know about that could really use our help. Our jobs as social workers is to help those who need help no matter if they are rich, poor, disabled, white, Hispanic, it does not matter because everyone should be treated equally. As NASW states, “The original mission of social work had much to do with championing the rights of society’s most vulnerable members, from children to homeless people to the physically disabled” (NASW: National Association of Social Workers, 2015, para. 1).
What I learned about the social construction of difference conceptually means the differences in society that people perceive individuals are morally consist of gender and race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and social class. Theoretically, according to Allan Johnson, social construction of difference, is created between two groups, one groups that has privileges and the ability to pass through society as “normal’. Some humans that are considered to be the oppressed are “non-normal and do not get the same privileges of the domain group. Johnson also uses the example of American woman who has not had any contact with white society. As of what the women knows, she is merely aware that she is an African American woman, not considered to be a black woman, in her state of
Society shapes racial inequality in the modern United States and Wayne Brekhus (2015) looks at how social marking is an element of culture in American society. When discussing race, people tend to talk about discrimination against marginalized communities (i.e. non-whites, females, homosexuals, etc.). They actively look at the marked category--those marginalized communities-- and the unmarked goes ignored. Berkhus believes that there are two possible reasons why these unmarked categories are avoided. Either the issue is psychological where individuals “deliberate[ly] disciplin[e] the mind to ignore the irrelevant” or it is sociological and is caused by the “deeply ingrained unconscious pattern of cultural or subcultural selective attention
Among an array of Values from The Code of Ethics (TCE) of social work Value 1 dictates that as social workers we must respect the dignity of our clients and refrain from passing judgement onto them (Canadian Association of Social Work, 2005, pg.7). As a social worker, it is important to follow this value as it prevents the distancing of the client from the worker as the client will have a better chance of opening up to someone who does not instantly tell them what to do or reprimand them for their actions or non-action in their lives. Oppression relates to the TCE in that it says the social work profession’s main purpose is to raise their clients who are vulnerable, oppressed and/or living in poverty (CASW, 2005, pg.7). Taking this into account
Reflecting directly on the cultural attitudes and sociocultural messages explained throughout this course, it is clear that race, gender, and sexuality are all socially constructed in one way or another. Contrary to popular belief, race is actually almost completely socially constructed, it is not biological. Further, a human’s DNA does not differentiate at all to create any specific race. However, society has categorized certain things, such as skin color, to determine the race of individuals. In simpler terms, there are not specific genes that parents pass on to their offspring that determine their race; society categorizes people into specific races when they are born based on their
Social workers challenge social injustice. Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. The meaning of this value is to ensure that individuals going into the social work profession pursue change, most importantly with, on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals, and with groups of people. Additionally, this social work value forces social workers to constantly affect social change primarily focused upon issues of poverty, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice by creating activities that seek to promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic