On Stigmatizing the Sick: Susan Sontag

On Stigmatizing the Sick: Susan Sontag

This oral presentation applies Susan Sontag’s ideas to sick population stigmatization. Building on Sontag’s Illness as a Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, the presenter evaluates Sontag’s claimsthat language and metaphors individuals use to describe ill populations often lend an otherwise hidden hand to our damaging views of them. In her essays, Sontag has drawn on a personal battle with cancer, the views on the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, and the cultural and societal ramifications growing out of that panic that still perpetuate in modern day. While such medieval concepts still have their grasp on global public health, Sontag argues this is a detrimental component to society’s view of how the sick become sick. The presenter seeks to flesh out Sontag’s logic, but also apply that logic to a more currentstigmatized label: mental health disorders. Those with mental health disorders are viewed as a burden, different, and unaligned with norms and expectations in society. It can be difficult to separate a mentalhealth disorder from a person’s display of maladaptive behaviors. As this group has become morevisible, that same stigmatization has shifted to the world of mental health. Conversational language suchas calling a friend “crazy” or “bipolar”, has made it acceptable to negatively view those with mentalhealth disorders. The presenter argues that the general population, from medical professionals to families and friends, stigmatize mental health today in a manner predictably similar to attitudes towards ill groups of the past.