Dehumanization

Constructing a discourse and/or narrative where a certain category of people is seen as less than human. (In Swedish: dehumanisering)

Interactions

This facet of categorism is an expression of: prejudice, bigotry and discrimination, acting on the dogmatic level or discursive level]].

It is likely to intersect with facets such as:

• Othering: If it isn't even human, it's certainly not one of us!
• Incomprehensibilization: it is hard to dehumanize someone we understand, and hard to understand someone while we dehumanize them.

As well as with abstractions such as:

• Categorization by emotional bias: When we see someone as human, it becomes hard to categorize this person as something we consider to be less than human.
• Zero-category: Through dehumanizing a minority, it becomes easy to pretend that the majority is simply "human" - and thus not a category.

Examples of applying this facet to a particular foci of categorism can include:

• homophobia: Talking about gay people as if they were animals in heat.
• misogyny: Talking about human traits such as logic and reason as if they were exclusively male traits, as if women were pet animals rather than fellow human beings.
• misandry: Talking about men as if they were robots or monstrous beasts. "To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo."