(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stigma#Goffman.27s_theory) Goffman called a stigma towards anyone with a noticeable speech problem discrediting based on the premise that speech is often one of the first traits we notice in another person. A stigma about their speech – even if the afflicted speaker is a Nobel Prize winner — can overshadow and erase everything else.
I am living proof of Goffman’s
theory. When I was eleven and lost my ability to speak normally, I felt the
sting of stigmas. Actually, it began earlier.
From the time my sister and I were
seven or eight years old, my parents labeled us. My sister did well in school
and was called “the smart one.” Academically I struggled, but I was pretty and
called “the pretty one.” These labels weren’t just given once, but repeatedly
throughout our school years and beyond. As children, my sister and I believed
whatever our parents told us and, unfortunately, what their labels implied – my
sister wasn’t pretty and I wasn’t smart. When my normal speech disappeared, it
was around 1960. The word dumb means stupid, but it was used then to also describe someone who can’t speak. I hated
that word and I struggled for decades to convince myself and everyone else that
that word didn’t define me.
During high school my mother doted
a lot on my appearance but often said that I had a lot of common sense. As a
typical teenager, and perhaps due to my common sense, I began to question
almost everything my parents said. I realized that I wasn’t dumb in the sense
of intelligence, and I didn’t have to believe the assumptions that my parents
or anyone else made about me. However, by the time I was fourteen I had already
heard enough from television, radio, at school and at home to convince myself
that the world was filled with people who had preconceived notions about what I
could or couldn’t accomplish based on my speech. It was obvious that my speech
wasn’t normal, so I began to fear that the quality of my life and the
opportunities I had wouldn’t be either.
Whatever my parents said or
thought, they prepared me to be self-reliant. I learned stenography in school
and quickly became an extraordinary typist who could accurately punch out
almost 100 words a minute. My mother was sure that I could do secretarial work,
but I was extremely apprehensive about it. I fervently wanted to be
independent, but using the telephone was a huge problem and I had no other
marketable skills.
I earned my first paycheck from a
part-time job I had during high school. I learned to file and sometimes used my
steno and typing skills. The head of the company and most of the staff were
very nice, but my supervisor often belittled me. She told me that my clothes
weren’t ironed properly, and commented about my inability to properly
communicate. I was easily intimidated by anyone who mentioned my speech. When
she said, “You need to stop stuttering,” I would have given anything to respond
but I couldn’t. If I got angry the undiagnosed blockage I always felt in my throat
started to feel bigger and made my abnormal speech even worse. As long as I worked there I tried to do my best and prove
that I was worthy, but I avoided my supervisor as much as possible.
After high school I attended
college, but I wasn’t ready emotionally so I dropped out in my first term. I knew
I couldn’t become a teacher, a lawyer, or anything particularly interesting
because everything demanded normal speech. My speech ebbed and flowed.
Sometimes it was okay. At other times, often depending on my moods and how
jittery I might be, it was horrible. I tried to be creative about work when I
began looking for a job in the 1960s, but there weren’t a lot of choices.
I was fired from one job because my
boss heard me speak on the phone. Forging ahead, I got another job as a
secretary in the advertising department of the Chicago Sun-Times. My supervisor
was a kind man, but noticed how hard it was for me to speak at times. One day
he tried to bring it up but I could tell that he didn't know how. I could also
tell that it must have been a problem for him to have me as his assistant.
When I was twenty years old I moved
from Chicago to California and began working at the University of California in
Berkeley. My job consisted of maintaining library serial card files, some
typing, stenography, and a little phone work. Again, there was a woman in the
office who constantly voiced her low opinion of me, usually regarding my voice.
Often she uttered little biting remarks after I got off of the phone like, “You
need to do something about your speech.” I had no idea what to say and, even if
I did, I couldn’t. After a few years of working with her and two other kindly
women, a co-supervisor stepped in and said something to her. I wish I had the
voice to do that for myself, but I was grateful that someone else did. In time
I left that job, worked part-time with a lovely woman in another department and
went back to college.
After I graduated college I
continued working office jobs. They bored me and I wasn’t happy at any of them,
but I didn’t know what else to do to earn a living. I worked in numerous
departments at a children’s hospital, for a friend who runs a bakery, and
finally in the publishing industry.
I felt fortunate to find a position
that didn’t make a lot of demands on my speech. Computers were coming into use
when I began working in publishing, so email soon became available and I could
do most of my work without using the phone much. I spent my time editing and
performing other tasks that were more interesting than the basic office jobs I
held in the past, but the pay was still fairly low and I felt – as I always had
– that my job required less than I really had to offer.
The office held weekly meetings
that I dreaded. Everyone had to report on what they were doing and I always
tried to make my comments as brief as possible. Usually my voice failed me.
Those who were the best communicators often dominated the meeting and I knew
that they were also the best paid. It didn’t seem to matter that I could write
well, work quickly, or be a whiz on the computer. My inability to speak
normally kept me from moving up.
For years I tried to figure out
what I could do that would give me enough money and be fulfilling. I envied
anyone who had a career they had chosen for themselves. My work remained the
one area of my life, regarding my speech affliction, where I felt cheated. I
always wanted more.
After working in publishing for
twenty years I was in a position to go back to school and learn American Sign
Language (ASL). I was fifty-eight years old. Seven years earlier I had finally
been diagnosed and started on treatments for my speech problem — a rare and
severe speech disability.
I wanted to learn ASL ever since I
lost my normal speech as a child, but my parents were against it. I wish I had
the opportunity to be a teacher for the Deaf as a young woman, but the stigma
my parents held against Deaf people prevented that. They believed that Deaf
people were dumb. And in my parents’ minds, the word meant unintelligent.
After completing a two-year program
for ASL, volunteering at a Deaf school and a Deaf counseling and advocacy
organization, I knew I wanted to work with Deaf children or other children who
may not have speech as a means of communication. I was tired of trying to avoid
all the stigmas and fit into the normal work world where people are expected to hear and
speak and see. For once in my life I wanted to feel relaxed at a job and not
worry about someone mentioning my speech. I wanted to be around other people
who were without a voice, like me.
I am so grateful that I found a job
where I work with both Deaf children and hearing children who have speech
problems. As soon as I began working with them to teach ASL and help them to communicate, I knew I had
found my calling.
I know that the stigma against
anyone with a severe speech problem still exists. Sadly, I continue to meet parents who have lower than normal expectations for their disabled child. Any
child who is Deaf or speech disabled should still have a normal or higher
standard set for them. If someone can’t speak but is given language and becomes
literate, there is no reason to think their mind is less than. Expecting that
child to fail or be dumb is not based on truth; it is a stigma, an unfair and
misinformed delusion.
I will always fight against stigmas
that may lower someone’s expectations and opportunities in life. My prayer is
that the children I work with will never feel the sting of a stigma; that they
will only know equality and the opportunities that come with it in a world
where they can follow their dreams.
