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Oh dear. So like the big theory about the social role of illness is based in the functionalist model (which is outdated and sociologists hate and is only really taught in textbooks bc its so awful). Like it's deeply flawed but sociologists still study Parson's sick role
And if it's not commonly taught/accepted by modern sociologists, it's still a common belief for a big chunk of the US
But they define sickness as more of a social phenomenon that's more or less independent of biology. So you're only sick if you act sick & you're only sick if other people see you as sick.
Within this model, sickness is dysfunctional and it's viewed as a form of deviance. Like it's "abnormal" and the patient is supposed to want to return to normal ,, which i guess is true but it totally erases chronic illnesses and what is normal anyway??
But if other people define what sickness is, then illness isn't even defined by the person experiencing it! It's just defined by how it is observed by society! I think that's how we tend to view/respond to sickness, at least in the US
And I think that will invariably result in stigmatization. We can try to destigmatize it and have some success, but we'll never fully get there if we're pretending it doesn't really happen and if we're seeing it as an abnormality
I'm really grateful that a lot of intersectional feminism is talking abt this though and that there's a lot of theory that better explains what I'm talking about. I just wrote a paper with this conclusion and it feels obvious but it makes me so mad
