Master Status

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Master status is a socialogical term that refers to a status defered on a person by default, in the case of disablity. disablity. This is slightly different from a stereotype because a master status overides any other considerations. For instance, a man in a wheelchair will only be refered to as a “wheelchair person” with no other designations used to clarify personality, sex, or race. In a sense, the disablity becomes the person, and this overrides all other personal characteristics.
The biggest problem with master status is that it invites discrimination against those with disablities. If people are defined completely by their disability, then the biggest problem becomes for that person to come across as a fully complete and human being, when the master status is only one aspect of it. This leads directly to the preconception that those with disabilities are sub-human and not entirely worthy of human respect.
Do you have a master status? And how do you deal with it?

My master status is primarily my deafness. I have an implant and I can hear normally like most people, but the problem is that I can’t fully comprehend what is being said.

Problems with master status began quite young for me. When it was found that I was deaf, several doctors said that I would basically be ret*d because the speech delay was so long. Obviously, that is not the case today, but the “deaf and dumb” sticker still has a tendency to follow me wherever I go.

In shopping and most everyday interactions, I doubt most people even realize that I am deaf; I can easily catch in on a conversation and grasp the content with my lighting-fast and phenomonly accurate lipreading skills(in conjunction with my cochlear implant, which allows me to catch whatever I miss with my eyes). My speech is adqueate, and even though I talk with a slight accent, it is more the accent of a forienger than what is heard from most deaf folks. My implant is frequently mistaken for a MP3 player (one of the indirect blessings of modern life!) and those who do recognize it for what it is are probably comfortable for what it is, for they may have friends and relatives with them. That is how I am in the supermarket, stores and in public.

In school, more prolonged social contact catches up with me and people start to realize that I am indeed deaf. Some people run up to me and start trying to do some ASL with me, but I don’t know a lick of sign. Since I do already have the master status, I do have some more liberty to act somewhat more eccentric and get away with it; nobody cares because I am already obviously deaf. Looking at the faces of these people and from what I see of fear on the WP emotion-faces stuff, I think they express a little fear when I actually talk to them dirrectly or look at them when they look at me. Others appear comfortable with me, and actually do treat me as if I were a fully fledged human being, which is good. But most don’t seem exactly all that thrilled to be next to me.

One time, in a job interview, about twenty minutes after telling him I was deaf, he looked up from my resume which he was reading and told me he was sorry because he didn’t realize how intelligent I was.

I got a newspaper article written on me because I ran cross country and was doing so well in school, and was deaf to boot. I rather liked the attention at the time, but nowadays, I feel somewhat patronized by this. I got a 3.8 average at the time, but lots of people get 3.8 averages and don’t get articles written about themselves in the newspapers for getting a 3.8 average and running CC.

Out of what I like to label as “disablity communitys” the deaf community is probably the most powerful of these.

Despite all the advances that they have made, there is still a strong undercurrent against most deafies.

Odd. If anyone meets me for the first time, this is the word that'll pop into their head at least ten minutes after meeting me. I've actually had people who just met me tell me I'm odd. I don't know if that's a master status, but that's the closest thing I can think of that applies to me. I ten dto overlook master satatus of people though, after working in a grocery store you learn to become adjusted ot anything commonly seen as disabling or sub-humanizing. I've seen plenty of old people with the implant in their ear, and I've also seen a peson with LFA, but I atill treat them the same.

This master status thing sounds simlalr to my "Theory of Cool". I've been needing to type this up. It's about how a single group or person's sphere of influence and how it affects the mainstream society's view of things. It focuses more on fads and cliques (etc.), but I could easily include master status in this and I thank you for sharing it. I genuinely feel sorry for your defness becoming a source of attention, I too hate unwanted attention.

My master status is "The girl that never says anything" or "The weird girl"

ah. This one will date me.

When I joined the work force, oh so many years ago, my master status was "female." As a female in a male dominated area, I was either expected to be super on the job or a token. I was reading some old board minutes from my work place and I found out my employer wanted to hire a female for the position I was hired for. Although it was't stated in the minutes, it was clear a female was wanted for this position because it was a middle manager position...high enough to make the firm look "progressive" yet not high enough to really be able to fowl things up. The minutes did actually state a female there would cover the firm when bidding on government jobs with quotas. Even though that may have been why I got the job, I like to think I kept it on merit.

Now, of course, my gender is almost a moot point at work.

BeeBee ( a female )

People stereotype other people so quickly and so often. Nathan, one of my close friends from church is mostly deaf and she uses hearing aids, but it's not like anyone (at church, at least) treats her any different than normal. I was a little bit surprised to know she couldn't hear without help, but she's understanding about that kind of thing. Deaf does not necessarily equal dumb. People categorize others as being dumb when they cannot successfully communicate their ideas with others around them. You seem to be able to communicate just fine with other people, both here at WP and in real life, so I wouldn't worry too much about being labeled "deaf and dumb".

If all else fails, don't worry about what other people think because they don't do it very often. Seriously.

This isn't necessarily a disability. But I was always jealous of my talents because it always seemed that those were what attracted people to me and not necessarily my personality.

It almost felt that if I didn't have any talents at all, I would be a total outcast with only a couple minor redeeming qualities.

So, strangely I have felt jealous of myself. I guess my Master Status would, in a sense, be "Talented" and thus all the rest of me pales in comparison.

I hope that doesn't sound like bragging. I really am not trying to. It's just how I feel. "The Artist", "The Poet", "The Thinker", blah, blah, blah. It was never "The Friend" or "The Personality". It was always such a focus on the things I could do and not as much who I was.

Well, my mom loves my personality. But all mother's are supposed to do that. It's in their Parent Handbook they get when we're born.