Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Effect of prejudice and discrimination in society
The effects of prejudice and discrimination in society
The impact of prejudice on society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Effect of prejudice and discrimination in society
Audre Lorde and Susan Sontag’s personal experience with cancer is depicted in their books with great detail; both describe obstacles those facing terminal illnesses must endure. Terminal disease distributes anxiety and fear among those facing death and it also carries social stigmas. Social stigmas placed on individuals diagnosed with terminal diseases are negative connotations or perceptions bestowed upon the terminally ill for bearing characteristics for which they are deemed different than the expected social norms. Both books outline the fear and uncertainty the terminally ill face daily. Lorde’s and Sontag’s purpose was to liberate those with cancer from silence and mystery. They felt it was necessary to give cancer a different perspective. The purpose of this paper is to compare how Susan Sontag’s Illness as a Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, and Audrey Lorde’s The Caner Journals, denounce society from metaphoric thinking.
Susan Sontag (1978) states “one cannot think without metaphors” (p. 93), metaphors have been traced back to the French Revolution. So, why is society so eager to impose metaphoric thinking towards illness and health? Sontag states “metaphors imposed on illness are so much a vehicle for the insufficiencies of this culture” (p.87), which why society views AIDS as a “plague”, there is a stigma associated with having AIDS, mostly because society associates AIDS with homosexuality. Some feel AIDS is a punishment for those who chose not to conform with “Gods” rules. Truth is, society is undereducated about AIDS and the metaphors infer society’s ignorance about how AIDS is transmitted and its failure to get acquainted. AIDS is widely viewed today such as cancer was in the 1970’s. During Sontag’s experience...
... middle of paper ...
...0’s cancer mortality rates have dramatically decreased from 10% to over 80% for leukemia. Overall decline in mortality for cancer was nearly 54% from 1978 to 2008 (National Cancer Institute, 2011). Decrease in mortality rates are due to improvements in cancer treatments. Recent advances in treatments are due to aggressive cancer therapies and collaboration of findings from clinical trials. More than 80 percent of patients are expected to be long term cancer survivors (National Cancer Institute, 2011).
Works Cited
Lorde, A. (1980). The cancer journals: special edition. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books
National Cancer Institute (2011). Surveillance epidemiology and end results. Cancer statistics. Retrieved from http://seer.cancer.gov/faststats/selections.php?#output
Sontag, S. (1978). Illness as metaphor and aids and its metaphors. New York, NY: Anchor Books
Because of advancements in technology and funding survival rates have increased in each patient and quality of life due to better chemotherapy and radio therapy drugs are helping millions of survivors round the world to lead a generally normal life without the risk of the cancer returning.
Carl Zimmer the guest speaker of this broadcast states that in 1981 doctors described for the first time a new disease, a new syndrome which affected mostly homosexual men. The young men in Los Angeles were dying and the number of cases was growing faster and faster. The number of deaths was increasing from eighty to six hundred and twenty five in just the first few months. After the first few cases in LA, AIDS was declared to be one of the deadliest pandemics the world had ever seen after the plague in the Middle Ages.
Chapter Seven lightly touches upon the death of AIDS patients, and the stigmatism's and rejection they may face, but also exhibits the patients' ability to control their moment of death. The joy which a family can gain when there is an open acceptance of a loved ones death is visible in Chapter Eight as John's f...
The Movie “And the Band Played On” is the framework of the earliest years of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Also known as the Gay disease. The movie examines HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States in the earlier 1980’s and emphasizes on three crucial components. An immunologist with knowledge in eradicating smallpox and containing the Ebola virus, joins the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to attempt and recognize just what this disease is. The film also deals the administration and government side that does not seem to care. The homosexual community in San Francisco is separated on the nature of the disease but also want to know what should be done
Allusions to illness and disease weave into every scene of the play, and can be found referenced
(Allen et al., 2000) The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a clinical situation that requires the ethical principle Justice to be implemented. AIDS can be transmitted by sexual activity, intravenous (IV) drug use, and passed from mother to child. Due to the judgments and fears from the general population and some healthcare professionals, patients who have this disease may find themselves suffering from discrimination in many ways of their lives. This discrimination comes from the stigma placed by the factors in which AIDS is mainly spread. These factors are poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, prostitution, human-trafficking, which create the labels like the “drug user” or “homosexual”.
In 1981 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report first rare cases of what is seemingly pneumonia in young gay men. These cases were then grouped together and the disease known as AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) takes its root in American Society. This disease spread quickly and the events following are responses to the spread of the disease in America known as the AIDS Crisis, where the response of both the people and the government would impact and change society and American culture and lead to emergence of a gay identity, persecution and fear of those with the disease, marketing of safe sex, and the deterioration of class barriers.
Nettleton, S. (2009). Introduction: The Changing Domains of the Sociology of Health and Illness. In L. S. Gilbert, Society, Health and Disease in a Time of HIV/AIDS (p. 35). Pan Macmillan.
"Demanding that life near AIDS is an inextricably other reality denies our ability to recreate a sustaining culture and social structures, even as we are daily required to devote such time to the details of the AIDS crisis." -Cindy Patton
Moreover, Treichler maintains that although society has become more progressive in its understanding that AIDS is a heterosexual disease just as much as a homosexual one, this advancement does not necessarily disintegrate the “fantasy” surrounding the issue (i.e. ideas about “safer sex”, etc.) Apprehending what one learns from science will obviously be very beneficial to one’s grasping the concept of AIDS in its most basic form, but using this information self-consciously and pragmatically – and knowing that the sometimes contradictory information one takes in might not necessarily be utilizing the correct discourse signifying what AIDS “really” means – will allow one to make sense of the disease as a complete, organized whole.
The book is written by Pamela Tucker Burton, an ordinary person who experienced the death of four family members, she shares her experiences and how a family stay positive, when they faced a deadly disease. In Pamela’s family were no cancer survivors, there were no encouraging sentiments to alleviate their pain. For a family with strong Christian beliefs the only healing and strength for their family was to pray, don’t be afraid and be spiritually prepared for the final journey.
The moment you are infected with a disease, you are label by the many imaginations of society. These imagination are not only creative and limitless in culture, but they ultimately create a division between normal and abnormal. In the novel illness as Metaphor, the American author Susan Sontag critiques how speaking disease metaphorically has many consequences by leading to the stigmatization of a disease beyond its scientific condition. Sontag teaches us that stigmatization of disease causes society to become counterproductive by developing an unfair bias when talking about disease and those afflicted with the disease. In particular, the way society discuss blindness based on metaphors create negative stereotypes of blindness and people afflicted with blindness, which by extension makes society counterproductive in understanding
(HRSA) What was first thought of as a gay disease quickly became noted as a disease anyone could get through having unprotected sexual intercourse or receiving blood that was from a HIV positive individual had it not been for eighteen year old Ryan White a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS after a blood transfusion the stereotype that it is a “gay” disease would still live on. With widespread panic and the public not having much knowledge of the disease an epidemic swept across the world in the early 1980’s and still continues today. Through much research, public explanation, films, and songs the world quickly understood more about the disease and AIDS victims now are not persecuted as much. In the 90’s a few musicians decided to educate the world through their mus...
There are four letters, that when put together can spell out a lifetime of agony, despair, prejudice and constant indignation; AIDS. Over the years the disease has been called GRID, Gay Cancer and finally came the name that is commonly accepted today, AIDS. Multiple theories are present as to the origin of this deadly virus, all of them are unique but no matter what the origin or name, AIDS is a terrible epidemic that needs to come to an end. People have suffered long enough, and too many people have been discriminated against something that’s not entirely their fault. The medicine for AIDS only prolongs the inevitable, and suffering of the poor people cursed with the disease. AIDS as of now is a death sentence and it currently has no cure; it targets people of every race, age, and gender from all walks of life but despite AIDS only being been around for less than a century, it has managed to leave an immense impact on American history, individuals, society and culture.
In many societies people living with HIV and AIDS are often seen as shameful. In some societies the infection is associated with minority groups or behaviours, for example, homosexuality, In some cases HIV/AIDS may be linked to 'perversion' and those infected will be punished. Also, in some societies HIV/AIDS is seen as the result of personal irresponsibility. Sometimes, HIV and AIDS are believed to bring shame upon the family or community. And whilst negative responses to HIV/AIDS unfortunately widely exist, they often feed upon and reinforce dominant ideas of good and bad with respect to sex and illness, and proper and improper behaviours.