Stigma

Erving Goffman, 1922-1983, is one of the most widely read sociologists in the USA and was a pioneer in the sociological research of gender interactions.

The American sociologist Erving Goffman has summarized certain recognizable and sufferable forms of abnormality under the general term stigma. He includes bodily, mental, and character defects equally. Goffman describes the techniques of contact for stigmatized individuals: they often require complicated strategies to maintain what people, as social beings, rely on: acceptance, recognition, and sympathy. Tilmann Moser.