Stigmatizing Stigmas
The first step in figuring out what to do about stigmas is being aware of what they are.
I have previously pondered the point of awareness campaigns. Having seen several of them, there have been many situations where they brought my attention to issues that I can do little or nothing about — or so it would seem. After giving it a little more than a cursory thought, I began to realize that awareness is as much about educating individuals as it is about spurring them to action.
Why is that important?
The foundation of most societal issues is rooted in hierarchies and ideologies. These two concepts are bound together by one term: stigma. Stigmas support hierarchies and give power to ideologies. Each level of any hierarchy is bound to be linked to a stigma, whether the stigma is about the people, their attitudes, mannerisms, professions, or other factors. Though often compared to their cousin, the stereotype, stigmas have much darker undertones.
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Stereotypes can be used in a comedic context — functioning as the caricatured archetype — while stigmas have much more intense social implications, serving as undercurrents of racism, sexism, and various other forms of discrimination. They perpetuate the negative ideas and biases that lead us to believe things that are detrimental toward one or many groups of people.
As professionals working in legal professions, we are the mediators of society. We help to set and enforce boundaries, as well as the consequences for breaking them. If our boundaries are riddled with holes of hypocrisy, however, then what purpose do we serve?
The question then becomes “What can we do about stigmas?“
The first step in that process is being aware of what they are. If you don’t know what they are, then you cannot really do anything about them. Following that, the next course of action is centered around terminology. Most stigmas carry weight because they have an artillery of vocabulary backing them up.
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By virtue of association, those words have the full force of the stigma behind them and often filter into the seemingly harmless conversation as well. They have the ability to infiltrate the subconscious and do more damage without us even realizing it.
Words that are phonetically or etymologically similar become tied to the stigma’s associated vocabulary through our mental lexicon and, before we know it, our brain and conversation are littered with biases and language that pertain to all sorts of discriminatory ideologies.
Becoming aware of the terminology involved is a quintessential step to disempowering stigmas. When we realize that we connote the word “black” with evil or illegal things (think “black market” or “black magic”) then we can have a better understanding of where we might be normalizing racism.
The law is composed of language. The subtleties and nuances of that language are why people need lawyers who can navigate those intricacies and help establish the denotations and connotations therein. Institutionalized discrimination is found in the language of our contracts, policies, and everyday conversations. Therefore, it is our job to be more precise in the language that we use for these purposes. Hiring policies, mission statements, and colloquial legalese must be re-examined and analyzed.
The law is intended to ensure justice. It cannot achieve that when the letter of the law is itself discriminatory. It is the duty of lawyers — in-house or outside — to be intentional about how we guide our organizations to communicate and show up. To do otherwise would be heinous.
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We need to be informed on the words we use and the way we use them, lest we fall prey to ideologies that we should not be supporting.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.
