Stigmatizing animals through breed standards has no place in the United States

I keep seeing the word stigma in news reports, and I think it’s time to look at this word in relation to breed standards.

Animals who carry the “stigma” of something that is not allowed in a breed, whether color, height or type, often are shunned by that breed, either through standards that ban the animal or inspections that fail the animal.

The thing about stigmas is they disappear over time.

Yet the immediate damage is done when an animal’s genes are thrown out as unacceptable for that breed. How many wonderful individuals are prevented from being created or included because of a temporary bias against these petty stigmas?

Let’s look at a couple of stigmas.

“Ms. Magazine” in May 2011 looked at breast cancer in women in Arab countries. Women don’t get screened, much less treated, in these countries because breast cancer is considered a stigma. Once women know they have the disease, they hide it. THEY HIDE IT because they are now viewed as deformed, unworthy of marrying or unattractive to their husband.

Compare that to the United States, where women don pink T-shirts and parade in front of millions every June to celebrate the fact that they survived breast cancer. Women reporters with breast cancer cover their ordeal blow by blow on video. As they should. It’s helpful to other sufferers and puts the disease on the radar of those who don’t have it.

Breast cancer should not be a stigma. And countries should rally around sufferers and help them survive. Yet for millions of Arab women, breast cancer is a silent death sentence.

Not so long ago, being a professional women was a stigma. I don’t mean back in the days of caves. I mean 1870, when my great-grandparents were growing up.

A woman named Belva Lockwood wanted to attend law school at Columbian College in the District of Columbia. Over the objections of trustees, who thought she’d be a distraction to male students, she was allowed into the school but not granted a diploma after completing her classes. Thus, she could not be admitted to the bar. She appealed to Ulysses S. Grant, then president, and received her diploma shortly thereafter at the age of 43. Still, in court, she faced judges who said she had no right to speak and removed her from the room.

She went on to run for president of the United States in 1884 and 1888, though women could not vote for her.

Needless to say, we’ve come a long way in this country in little over a century.

There are more hurdles to clear, but, legally, women can’t be excluded anymore. Think how many great American women weren’t allowed to be part of the political dialogue because men didn’t want them there.

I see no difference between either of these examples and any breed standard that excludes an animal from being part of any breed. Whether some humans who control that breed society like it or not, that animal has every right to be a part of that group.

Let anyone say differently, and I will point out a stigma on that person that offends somebody someplace in the world and would get the person excluded if the person weren’t so lucky as to live in the United States. Need I point out again that the American inspectors are all women.

Let’s let our animals enjoy the same stigma-free environment provided by this great nation. Unless these women inspectors approve of stigmas and would like to be prevented from basic rights, as well.