VICTIMHOOD

Victimhood

Victimhood

Introduction

Victimhood is a recently emerged terminology. It has not made any place in most dictionaries. It typically refers to the continuing and cumulative victimization of group. Previously, most of people had faced discrimination due to their different group and cultural background. For instance, black people were made slaves; women were facing discrimination based on genders, those all were victims. The concept of victimhood caught political attention after the abolition of slavery and acknowledgement of the women's right. Victimhood is persistently rising despite the fact that various pillars of society are cleaned of favouritism. It carries on increasing although minorities and genders right have been recognized widely throughout the society and different policies have been imposed.

There are various types of circumstances, which can lead an individual or a member of group to have a sense of being a victim. It gives the impression that victimhood relates to psychological state of person's mind. The outcome at one side is from experience and encounter of victimization on the other hand it also relates to repertoire of a person. To be more specific, it can be said that it is the blend of experienced damage and its long-lasting impacts, which become influential parts of a victim's personality (Letschert et.al, 2011, p. 3-14).

Conditions for Victimhood

There are certain findings that delineate numerous factors and conditions for the appearance of the feeling of victimhood and identify that why people describe themselves as a victim. It happens when a person was harmed in any situation. He/she was not guilty of harmful incident but held responsible. It is also possible if a person had no authority to control and avert the abuse or violence. Individuals can also be afflicted with victim mentality, if their desire of gaining sympathy grows powerful. Any feel of injustice is also subjected to victimhood.

In addition to the numerous particular definitions, various explanations of the emergence of victimization have also identified. For instance, it has been suggested, victimization's idea assumes that certain individual or cumulative rights were violated. The rights can be concrete such as right of food and shelter, or it can be conceptual such as right of self-actualization, happiness or recognition. This difference leads to another distinction which propose that some victims experience a tangible abuse for example physical injury or murder attempt, whereas other take affect of intangible violation such as psychological trauma, insecurity or identity damage. Therefore, Victimhood is not only an objective incidence but it is also related to subjective encounters. Thus, it is obvious that some people can classify themselves as subjected to victimhood while other may regard it as a part of life (Hudson, 2003, pp. 174-191).

Related Factors

Victim mentality

A person considers her or himself as a victim of the destructive and negative actions in a learned characteristic and personality trait. This belief then derives the actions of this person and then the person start behaving as a victim even if there is no clear evidence. People learned this behaviour typically from their families, peers, situations and incidence ...