Homophobia and Heterosexism
Berkman and Zinberg's (1997) study "Homophobia and Heterosexism in Social Workers" examines the prevalence of homophobia and heterosexism in social workers. The researchers also correlate the relative homophobia or heterosexism with a variety of other factors such as gender, level of education about homosexuality, level of contact with gay men and lesbians, and religiosity. The authors create their research hypothesis based on prior research; however, much prior research in this area is significantly limited in scope and/or outdated. Therefore, the current study seeks to address the shortcomings in the literature on this subject matter. Moreover, the authors not only want to assess the rate of homophobia or heterosexism within the American social worker population but also determine whether or not these biases would impact their treatment of gay or lesbian clients. Social workers are employed in the service of others to help them cope with a variety of challenging life situations, from severe illness to spousal abuse. Therefore, these health care professionals should not bring personal biases to the workplace because it can negatively impact quality of treatment. This study seeks to determine the nature and extent of social workers' homophobic or heterosexist biases. Unfortunately, homophobia and heterosexism are unconscious biases that are difficult to study scientifically; the results of this study are based almost exclusively on self-reports.
According to the authors, homophobia is defined as "fear, disgust, anger, discomfort...
Human Sexuality and Homophobia Even in the wake of political correctness, homophobia still haunts many people in our culture. Heterosexuality is still the dominant social expression and any intimate relationship that falls outside the accepted boundaries of heterosexual union is considered to be taboo. The modern media and institutes of higher learning are only recently beginning to try changing the ingrained belief that heterosexuality is the only "normal" form of sexual
Lesbian Health Care Lesbian Health Issues in a Heterosexual Society The additional burdens placed on the lives of minorities as a result of social exclusion can lead to health disparities. Social exclusion theory has been used in previous research to investigate the health disparities that exist between socioeconomic classes and individuals of different ethnic backgrounds living in the United States, but it has not yet been applied to another important minority group:
" (Neville & Henrickson, 2005) Additionally stated by Neville and Henrickson (2005) is the fact that: "Despite an apparent acceptance of LGB people in recent times, there is a continuing and underlying stigma associated with living a non-heterosexual lifestyle (Dean et al. 2000). Consequently, a pervasive and often covert level of homophobia, heterosexism and violence continues to be promulgated which directly affects the health and well-being of these diverse communities." (2005) III.
Heterosexism is an issue few people mention in long-term care. My position is one FOR the transformation of long-term care facilities to combat potential heterosexism and promote quality care for LGBT elders. This is because out of the millions of elderly or soon to be elderly within the American population, at least three million of them will be from the LGBT community. Since they are homosexual, bisexual, or transgendered, stereotypes,
Social Policy Regarding Sexism How are sexism and heterosexism are linked? Sexism basically deals with discrimination related to gender. This can undertake discrimination against just women or even against men too. Sexism implies that there are conventional gender roles that one ought to follow and these roles have an effect on the way people behave in society. Sexism involves the stereotyping of genders and generalizing the way people act (Gotz, 1999). This
Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo has been a professor of Psychology at Stanford University since 1968 and is one of this nation's most famous psychological researchers. In 1970, his Stanford Prison Experiment dramatically illustrated the capacity of ordinary individuals to develop abusive and even sadistic impulses in a classic experiment that has been widely taught to undergraduate Psychology students for nearly four decades. More recently, Dr. Zimbardo was enlisted by the
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