Blaming The Victim Summary

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While there may not be a perfectly ideal process to address and or solve a social issue, there are ideologies that continually oppress entire populations of people and all the while fail to solve the root of the issue. A lot of people in higher power in the United States express the Blaming the Victim ideology, meaning they view social problems as being caused by the individuals who are experiencing said social issues. This shifts the blame from the institutions that actually cause the issue and therefore no action is taken other than addressing the personal failing of the targeted population. C. Wright Mills suggests the solution relies in obtaining the knowledge of the historical context surrounding the issue to find the connection between …show more content…
Not everyone who participates in blaming the victim is guilty of shaming the “victims” as this ideology is an unintended process. Blaming the Victim stems from a skew set of beliefs and the one holding these beliefs is cognitive dissonant towards his or her distorted reality. This process first starts with looking at known material of any given social issues describing said issue as a separate entity—all social problems are mutually exclusive. Secondly, the same problems are then described based on predetermined stereotypes. For example, the concept of divorce is a problem because the family is supposed to be sustainable. Divorce is the problem and it is not the outside forces that caused the divorce because the physical process of divorce is what upsets the status quo. If the family had instead found a way to remain intact, it would be seen as less of failure as it succumbed to the unspoken rules of society. The families who then follow through with the divorce are seen as failed subjects of society and are treated as the unusual. This is shown in social welfare and healthcare in the United States as the treatment for these social problems are portrayed as efforts to relieve those who deviate from the norm. …show more content…
A prominent social issue in the United States is the education system. The given information is that poor children in urban areas often learn too little in schools. There are then two ways to go about this issue; the Blaming the Victim ideology suggests that poor children in urban areas do not do well in school because their parents do not support and encourage their children’s learning. The fault then falls onto the children and their parents rather than the institution. The children deviate from the socially accepted norm and a lot of people fail to look past that. What those people overlook is the current status of urban schools in the United States—the overcrowded schools do not provide the resources children need for success. There is not enough funding to provide children with the textbooks, equipment, and staff to cater to their academic needs. Those with a Blaming the Victim ideology overlook that completely and therefore believe that the schools do not need to be improved but the parents are the ones who need to put more effort into their children’s education. Thus, money would be spent addressing the failures of the parents who will then be likely to remain in that role. Sociological Imagination provides people with the knowledge of decrepit schools and suggests reform in the education system. Money and

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