Military Labeling Essay

Labeling people is a messy and complicated ordeal. Once you are labeled as something such as deviant is very hard to remove that label. This is because people become stigmatized by their label and others will switch their attitudes and treatment of someone based on what they are labeled. For example, when you are a “military wife” or even more specific, “Navy wife”, “Army wife”, “Marine wife”, etc. you become labeled. Society has formulated it’s opinion of what a military or navy wife is based on what they have heard or seen from one or maybe even two people who gave them perspective that stuck in their minds, making all other military wives the same and stuck in that labeled category. Let’s say you met someone that was a military wife and this woman was bragging about cheating on her husband or partying and drinking all the time. Then you hear from a friend, “oh yeah, military wives are crazy cheaters and drunks”. You may have now stored the label, “military wife” in your head with the definition …show more content…
It is unfortunate, and it doesn’t seem right. We each have a different walk we have taken in life, and being subjected to labels makes it hard to be involved in certain events, and organizations, maybe even to be hired for a job. If you really wanted a job and the person that does the hiring had a bad experience with a military spouse once, it may hinder his/her desire to hire you.
After reading the text and studying the different theories such as structural strains theory, control theory, labeling theory, and so forth, I agreed with the text in regard to how society can create deviance by encouraging high aspirations and denying avenues of success (Schaefer, 2011). If you become conformed to your label and you start acting delinquent due to your new broken bond with society and being ostracized then that proves that rule can be broken, and deviance can be created naturally, thus proving the control theory.