Adam's homophobia
For example, lets say that a man named Adam deeply dislike people he consider to be “homosexual”. Adam has (A) a lot to say about how filthy and disgusting he consider “that kind of people” to be, and (B) about how sexuality is “meant” for procreation. He's always (C) talking about gay people as “them”, always taking for granted that the people he talks with are heterosexual – the “us” that isn't “them”. He assume that everyone is heterosexual, unless they do sexual activities in public with people of the same gender – and he has a very negative view of anyone who would have sex in public. Of Adam's coworkers, Beatrice has a girlfriend and consider herself a lesbian. But she (D) doesn't dare to out herself or otherwise stand up to Adam, and is thus assumed to be heterosexual. Meanwhile, Adam often (E) accuse another coworker named Cedric of being “gay” or “a faggot”, refusing to hang out with him and thus making it impossible for Cedric to join social activities with any group of coworkers that contain Adam or any of his friends. This is in spite of Cedric only being attracted to women, and (F) often pointing this out.
Analysis
This example is an example of several facets of categorism:
- A: Stigmatization and unchecked aversion, on an individual level: Adam expressing his personal bigoted emotions.
- B: Invisibilization, incomprehensibilization and stigmatization, on a dogmatic level: Adam taking part in construction a worldview where there's no room for gay people (or for anyone else who have relationships for love or pleasure), where it shouldn't be possible to understand gay people, and where there must be something deeply wrong with gay people.
- C: Othering. On an individual level from Adam, on a group level from the coworkers who let it happen, and also on a systemic level if they live in a society where this is common and commonly accepted. Also reduction and representation bias, as Adam reduce gay people to sexual acts and assume almost everyone to be heterosexual – gays who don't misbehave doesn't count as “gay” to him.
- D: Invisibilization on a structural level: Beatrice live in a social context where people are assumed to be heterosexual. In such a society, a gay person often have to decide between outing herself (and possibly face dire consequences if she does) or be conscripted into assumed heterosexuality. While straight people generally don't have to face that dilemma.
- E: Demonization, categorist slurs, othering and marginalization, on an individual level: Adam doing this to Cedric.
- F: Othering, on a group level: To defend himself against Adam's attacks, Cedric enters a discursive alliance with Adam. Cedric construct himself as belonging to the group, being “one of us”, by helping Adam to construct gay people as being “the other, not us”.
Thus, this simple situation contains at least ten identifiable facets of categorism: Stigmatization, unchecked aversion, invisibilization, incomprehensibilization, othering, demonization, categorist slurs marginalization.
This page is a hypothetical example of categorism.
