26Guilt-Shame-Fear Stigma
The Guilt-Shame-Fear Spectrum of Cultures distinguishes between guilt societies, shame societies, and fear societies. In a guilt society, control is maintained by creating and reinforcing `feelings of guilt for certain behaviors. In a shame society, the means of control are the inculcation of shame and the threat of ostracism. In a fear society, control is achieved through retribution, resulting in the stigmatization of certain behaviors.
27. Fried brain sandwiches used to be a popular dish in the St. Louis area and are still a local delicacy in Evansville, Indiana, despite the stigma associated with mad cow disease. Many restaurants, however, have replaced cow brains with pig brains.
28. In ancient Sparta, unmarried men were forced to march naked through the streets during the winter while singing about their dishonor, resulting in the social stigma associated with being unmarried.
29. During WWI (and briefly WWII), the British would shame men into joining the military by recruiting young women to call them cowards on the streets of their hometowns. These women would also pin a white feather on them to symbolize their cowardice, contributing to the stigma associated with not serving in the military.
30. In feudal Japan, there was an untouchable caste comprising "impure" professions such as executioners, undertakers, workers in slaughterhouses, butchers, or tanners. 400 years later, descendants of this caste still face discrimination due to the stigma associated with their ancestors' professions.
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31Herpes and Stigma Marketing
The current herpes stigma is a result of an intentional "disease-mongering" campaign by a drug company developing a treatment. "There were no markets for this compound. Most had hardly heard of genital herpes. Marketing the medical condition as a 'stigmatized genital infection' was key."
32. Actress Salma Hayek breastfed another woman's baby during a goodwill trip to Sierra Leone in an attempt to diminish the stigma placed on women for breastfeeding.
33. Isaac Asimov contracted HIV from a transfusion during triple bypass surgery in 1983, but the social stigma surrounding the disease at the time led his family to keep it quiet for over ten years after his death in 1992.
34. In South Korea, it is such a stigma to adopt children that women are recommended to wear a maternity pillow to appear pregnant until the adoption is finalized.
35. President Grover Cleveland had cancer and underwent surgery in secret on his yacht to avoid the stigma of cancer at the time.
