discrimination

Society

2022

We explain what discrimination is, the types that exist, its causes and consequences. Also, examples and discrimination in Mexico.

Discrimination is a social behavior that produces different types of inequality.

What is discrimination?

When it comes to discrimination, it refers to a conduct social carried out by individuals, institutions, organizations or any social actor, which produces and reproduces certain economic inequalities by action or omission, Social, labor, affective or political, against a certain type of individuals, groups humans or institutions.

In other words, discrimination consists of denying an individual or human group access to certain rights, goods or services, without having a just reason for it. It is a social phenomenon that causes much discomfort in those who suffer from it and that impoverishes the treatment between human beings, making it less egalitarian, less democratic and therefore less just.

Discrimination often goes hand in hand with ignorance, prejudice and other subjective reasons for unfairly preferring one human subject or group over others. Of course, this is not the case when there are specific, individual reasons for rejecting an individual, without thereby generalizing to everyone what has the same social condition.

In the world there are numerous traditions, lawsdiscriminatory ideas, policies and practices, but also many institutions that fight against them in different countries. Discrimination goes against the wealth of a plural and diverse humanity, which accepts its differences in peace.

Types of discrimination

A first classification of discrimination has to do with direct discrimination, that is, one that actively assaults or segregates the other; and indirect discrimination, which is underground, discreet, invisible, but operates equally, although it is more difficult to perceive. Both are equally harmful.

Another classification addresses the reasons on which the discrimination is based, and which may be:

  • Sexual or gender discrimination. Occurs when a person is rejected person because of your sex, your sexual choice, or other intimate behaviors. It is very common for it to occur against women, homosexuals or transsexuals.
  • Religious discrimination. Similarly, it refers to reasons of religious practice or creed to discriminate against someone. It may be a rejection of those who practice a religion or, on the contrary, rejection of those who do not practice a certain religion.
  • Racism. Discrimination based on ethnicity, race or color of the skin, generally exercised in the West in favor of the white race (Caucasian), but it can also occur in any other sense.
  • Xenophobia. Dislike for people of another nationality, or from other cultures or regions. It can even occur between people of the same nationality, according to cultural regions or provinces.
  • Discrimination based on disability. It is aimed at people who suffer from some type of disability, whether physical or otherwise, perceiving them as incomplete or incapable people.

Causes of discrimination

The causes of discrimination are not easy to pin down. Many can be inherited from previous generations, inscribed in the local culture as some kind of ancestral enmity or historical rejection. In other cases they lie in negative personal experiences, which instead of being resolved remain and are transmitted in the form of prejudice.

Be that as it may, the generalization of a bad experience, or gratuitous prejudice towards others are little more than aggressive forms of ignorance, because instead of allowing oneself to know the other and learn from him, he is rejected in advance.

Consequences of discrimination

The most obvious consequences of discrimination are pain, annoyance, anger, on the part of the person suffering from the injustice. That may not seem like much, but in the long run, attitudes discriminatory engender their counterpart, returning like a boomerang against those who exercise it.

In some cases, discriminated people tend to resent and remember who discriminated against them, and may in turn move on to the role of discriminator in revenge, thus perpetuating the harmful cycle of discrimination.

Examples of discrimination

If women earn less than men for the same work, there is discrimination.

Examples of discrimination abound, unfortunately. A woman who is receiving a salary lower than that of her co-worker for making the same identical salary, she is being discriminated against. The same is a foreigner who is denied a position for which he is prepared, to give it to a local that does not have the same skills.

Also being discriminated against is a person of a certain ethnic group who is denied entry to a bar or a disco for being different, or a homosexual couple who is asked to leave an establishment simply because of their sexual preference, as if they were second-hand customers.

All of these are forms of unjust aggression, which serve as an example of discrimination, and which occur on a daily basis in many countries.

Discrimination in Mexico

Mexican society, like that of many other Latin American countries, is plural in its ethnic composition, given the important pre-Columbian cultures that existed in the region when the Spanish conquerors made their arrival in the 15th century.

Many of them still survive today, and they must contend with discrimination from many of their westernized compatriots, who believe that their cultures are "backward," and therefore judge indigenous traits as inferior. According to surveys, 5 out of 10 Mexicans claim to have felt discriminated against because of their appearance.

However, this type of racial and ethnic discrimination is constantly combated by the Condition, especially since the creation of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED) in 2003, as the executing agency of the Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination.

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