Bodily Deviance
Choose a form of deviance we discussed in class. Using recent scholarly sources (not more than 10 years old), explain how your chosen form of deviance is socially constructed as deviant in the following format:
• First, provide statistics that demonstrate this behavior/identity is in fact, deviant.
• Second, provide research about how current attitudes toward this behavior/identity are negative and/or stigmatizing.
• Third, provide research that illustrates the negative impact that being stigmatized/labeled as deviant has on this particular group.
• SHORT ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE: Being a vegetarian is deviant in America. First, estimates indicate that only about 3% of Americans follow a vegetarian diet. Second, vegetarians are stigmatized by non-vegetarians as a result of their vegetarianism. Third, vegetarians suffer from family and peer rejection because of their deviant diets (Merriman 2010).
