Shyness, under the label of, “social anxiety disorder”, has become an unnecessarily “unhealthy”, or “suspicious” state of mind for people living in modern Western societies. In that it’s behavioral “symptoms” suggest a failure to achieve an arbitrary set of cultural values, such as chattiness, individual expression, and assertiveness. Shyness is more and more defined as a problem for which people can, and should, be treated, usually with drugging.
McDaniel (2001) [1] argues that high amounts of concern regarding shyness comes during times when it is thought of as a barrier to the emotional work required to achieve intimacy in hetero relationships for both genders.
Shyness in women and children has traditionally been seen as endearing and ‘cute’ (Scott 2004a) [2], and men are given more social stigma as being shy. Media representations of shy male characters focus on the barriers this poses to success at work and in personal relationships (Scott 2003)[3], where the shyness in romantic situations (Gilmartin 1987) [4] implies a tragic, “failure”, to assert one’s masculinity. Shyness is shown as a ‘feminine’ trait in the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem 1974) [5], alongside moodiness, gullibility, soft-spokenness, compassion and unpredictability. Being, “mentally healthy”, typically implies masculine instead of feminine traits (Broverman et al. 1970) [6]. Therefore, shyness being a feminine trait would explain why shyness has been seen as an undesirable attribute, particularly in men. Besides mainstream culture, the relatively underground network of men’s websites acknowledge this phenomena as well:
Women are unnecessarily stigmatized in a gendered way by shyness-as-disorder as well. For example, in the context of established relationships (Giddens 1991) [7]. This “newly discovered insideous problem” is described as a woman’s inability to assert herself to a point that it poses a serious threat to a particular view of how, “life-politics”, should be. Shyness in women is often seen in western culture as just another, “female malady” (Showalter 1985) [8], as some sort of unnecessarily feminine behaviour.
Those in the APA and other organizations who helped create “social phobia” as a disorder in 1980 (Marc-Antoine 2015) [9] hopefully acknowledged shyness at best occupies a blurred line between health risk and an unnecessarily socially constructed deviance. But we argue that the social construction begets the health risk, with the APA playing a large negative role. We ask that you publicly acknowledge people wouldn’t suffer emotionally from shyness if the desire for people to achieve an arbitrary set of cultural values related to confidence went away. So, this emotional disturbance from shyness is not usually a biological problem. A variety of anxiety phenomena is an, insular, biological problem instead from the drugging of psychiatric patients and personal victimization from street drugs (Cohen 1995) [10]. Emotional disturbance from shyness is a valid social reaction from shy people who are ostracized more so than others from those who need confidence from *others* based on a certain masculine set of cultural values.
You probably agree that shyness itself appeals to it’s own set of cultural values Americans hold dear, such as thoughtfulness, modesty, kindness, and sensitivity. We pathologize shyness instead of those who identify shyness as a negative trait (such as the APA) in an unprecedented amount of people. If you encourage people to see shyness as a current or potential sign of maladaptation, shy people who aren’t already emotionally suffering from shyness will be further socially alienated and stigmatized.
Since shyness isn’t itself a problem and appeals to many cultural values, and those who need outside confidence in their lives are the ones who initially fuel the negative emotions in most shy people instead of internal biology, we ask that you pathologize the need for others to be self-confident and label it as the disorder it is. Confidence isn’t a problem, but the need for it from others creates an unnecessary justification for the shyness pathologizing in question.
Please pathologize the need for others to be and/or show social confidence and label it as the disorder it is and not shyness. You could call it, “Needing Others to be Socially Confident Disorder”.
sources in article
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