What is Demeaning used for?
Degrading is something that denigrates. The etymological origin of denigrating leads us to the Latin denigrāre, which means “to put black” or “stain”. The action of denigrating, therefore, consists of forming a (symbolic) stain on someone ‘s fame, reputation or opinion .
The demeaning is something that tarnishes, insults, offends, offends or outrages. It can be an effect produced by someone external or the consequence of an erroneous or unfortunate action of the person himself.
For example: “The image of young people drunk on the street is demeaning for the city”, “The owner of the company had a degrading attitude towards his employees”, “It is degrading that some people have to go through the garbage in search of food”.
Denigration is often associated with humiliation. If a boss accuses an employee of theft and forces him to undress in front of all his colleagues to prove that he has not taken anything that does not belong to him, it can be said that he is promoting denigrating treatment of the worker.
Similarly, if a young woman drinks too much and becomes drunk, she is likely to engage in demeaning behavior that she would never develop in a sober state. Urinating in public and insulting those who approach her are acts that denigrate her condition and that she herself carries out without realizing it due to the unconsciousness that alcohol has produced in her .
In the same way, we have to expose that throughout history there have been denigrating attitudes or terms that one collective or group has carried out against another. A good example of this is that the Jews for centuries have been outraged with all kinds of insults and were even the target of the Nazis, who killed, imprisoned and carried out a multitude of human experiments on them in the extermination camps.
Women, homosexuals or men and women of the black race, we can establish that they are among population groups that have been, since time immemorial, turned into the center of degrading actions and opinions. Unfortunately, and although progress has been made in many aspects, even today they have to face situations in which they are mocked, mocked, despised…
In addition to all of the above, we would have to underline that there is also what is known as denigrating advertising. This is a term that is used to refer to any advertisement that, due to the images or slogans it uses, offends or aggravates certain social groups.
Thus, for example, on more than one occasion, society has risen up against advertising that denigrates women because of the macho attitudes it posed and that showed her as a human being incapable of doing anything more than housework, in need of a man. to protect him or with questionable intellectual capacity.
It is possible to link the demeaning to discrimination. If in a town people who do not profess the majority religion are forced to wear a yellow hat so that everyone can recognize them, it will be a demeaning attitude.
