On a recent episode of her daytime talk show, Tyra Banks labeled girls with rage and anger problems as having ""Angry Girls' Disease."" So, these young women are not responsible for their anger or the actions that come with it.
They suffer from a ""disease,"" according to Banks. This is just another expression of our blameless society, or our tendency to blame other people and external events for our own problems or faults.
This is an age of victim advocacy and empowerment, and the emphasis on helping victims is a progressive and positive step for society.
For centuries, the oppressed and victimized—rape victims, slaves and the mentally ill—were often blamed for their situation, adding even more tragedy to their already unfortunate position.
Today, however, this social policy of taking the blame off of victims sometimes goes too far. Instead of using an enlightened form of thinking, this policy crosses over to the trendy and ridiculous.
As a result, society is too eager to not only blame others, like parents who blame the media for their children viewing violence on television; but also to generalize blamelessness to a certain group, when in fact the issue is much more complex.
For instance, there is a popularly held belief that alcoholism is a disease and the dependence on alcohol is never the fault of the alcoholic.
However, this ""alcoholism-as-disease"" theory is merely one model used for understanding this addiction, and not necessarily a scientific fact.
In the textbook ""Abnormal Psychology,"" Susan Nolen-Hoeksema said, ""This model has been supported somewhat by research on the genetics and biology of alcoholism and other drug addiction, but there clearly are social and psychological forces that make some people more prone to these disorders than others.""
Although alcoholism is tragic and society certainly needs to reach out to all who suffer from it, alcoholics may not be the powerless victims chained to their addiction through biology that many want to believe they are.
We can see a manifestation of this blameless culture on the local level as well. Several weeks ago, Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group organized a panel to examine homelessness and poverty in the Madison area.
At this panel, Katherine Bolton, a fellow at the Morgridge Center for Public Service, said, ""It's not someone's fault that they are homeless.""
Certainly that is true in the majority of cases, but such a blanket statement seems to generalize and simplify a complex issue (of course people who are made homeless due to mental or physical illness, poor access to education or low wages don't have themselves to blame.)
However, in many cases, the main fault does lie with the homeless person.
For instance, in the Showtime documentary Reversal of Fortune, a homeless man named Ted was screened for mental and physical competence and drug addictions and was given $100,000 as an opportunity to turn his life around.
He was offered both financial and mental counseling, but refused to take either.
Soon thereafter, he spent all of his money, refused to get a job and was back on the streets. He eloquently and intelligently describes his ordeal, and in the end concludes that he has a problem with authority and blames society for his homelessness.
While Ted may represent a minority of cases, his case proves that the issue of homelessness is more complex than all the homeless being mere victims.
Whether a person in a tragic situation is the one to blame or not, they still deserve aid and assistance from society.
Reminding a person that they are not the victim empowers them because they feel a sense of control over their life—that ""victim"" is still a master of his own will.
Instead of telling an angry young woman that she suffers from a ""disease,"" perhaps we should remind her that she is master of her actions and has the ability to get help, thus making her an active—not passive—participant in her own life.
On a recent episode of her daytime talk show, Tyra Banks labeled girls with rage and anger problems as having ""Angry Girls' Disease."" So, these young women are not responsible for their anger or the actions that come with it.
