Social Moral Dilemmas: A Case Study of Exclusion, Dehumanization and Stigma.

Despite recent implementation of laws protecting people with dwarfism and guaranteeing them equal rights in Mexico, they face several disadvantages (e.g., little access to work and services) and are more likely to accept a demeaning work environment. Using an ethnographic methodology, this paper analyses the interactions between people with dwarfism employed in an affluent nightclub of Mexico City and its clients. I argue that people with dwarfism are subjected to demeaning behaviour and treatment in this nightclub, representing a social moral dilemma. Social interactions are structured in such a way as to create a paradox: the provision of one right overrides the other (work or dignity). I delve into the social and interpersonal mechanisms that normalize demeaning behaviour towards employees and argue that attendees apply a selective value model: human value equals social value, and social value is displayed and obtained through a set of normative conditions, such as socioeconomic status and physical appearance, resulting in a process of dehumanization, constitutive of the stigmatization process. The analysis shows how interaction can perpetuate and sustain inequalities, eradicated in law, throughout contextual behaviour signifying the other as inferior and reaffirming the social hierarchy of a privileged group.