The word “scapegoat” is used so often these days that many people aren’t truly aware of what it means. As such, they use it to describe anything that they feel is unfair — whether that’s the reality or not.
The term “scapegoating” evolved from the word “escape-goat” and comes from an ancient practice in which the sins of the community are transferred to a goat, which is then driven off into the wilderness to take the sins away. Since the goat didn’t actually do anything wrong, it has become a symbol for people who are blamed for things they didn’t do and who are punished undeservedly.
Let’s take a look at the difference between legitimate grievances and truly being scapegoated using 7 common scenarios.
1. Being blamed for mistakes at work.
All of us have made mistakes at work before, and those missteps have sometimes been humiliating. If a person messes up royally, resulting in a project failing badly, then it’s a completely legitimate grievance for their employer and coworkers to be patently unimpressed by them. In fact, depending on what they did, there might actually be cause to fire them.
In contrast, let’s say a person was off sick while a project was underway, and came back to discover that it had all gone atrociously wrong. Although their name might be on the project, they had zero involvement with it because they were ill at home the entire time.
Unfortunately, the group decides that they’ll be the one to be the scapegoat for the failure, and make a big show of firing this lummox who was supposedly responsible for the screw-up. The company saves face, and the formerly ill employee is now an unemployed one.
2. Finance management in a romantic relationship.
In many relationships, each partner has a designated financial duty that they’re responsible for every month. For example, one might cover the rent while the other covers utilities and grocery expenses. If one consistently fails to pay their share on time, resulting in loss of utilities or warnings from the landlord, their partner has a legit grievance to air.
In a scapegoat situation, the one who hasn’t paid implies that it’s the other’s fault that they keep dropping the ball. Maybe they say that their partner didn’t remind them to pay, so the power being cut off is on them. Alternatively, they might accuse their partner of wrongdoing to avoid accountability, saying something like: “If you didn’t make me mad, I wouldn’t have had to go get drunk/do retail therapy and would have enough money to buy food.”
3. Adult children blaming their parents for all their struggles.
There’s a huge difference between having a legitimate grievance with one’s parents for wrongs done to them in childhood and scapegoating them to avoid personal accountability.
For example, my cousin’s mother had always told him that his biological father had died in a car accident before he was born, and he only found out that this was a lie after his mother died. He was able to find his birth dad, but only had a few years to get to know him before he passed on. As such, the grievance he had towards his mother for lying to him his whole life and preventing him from knowing his dad is a valid one.
In contrast, a friend of mine has spent years blaming his family for all of his personal issues instead of working through them and getting on with his life. For instance, at age 50, he still doesn’t know how to cook because his mother never taught him, so that’s her fault. Never mind the fact that he’s had decades to learn how to do this himself. He’d rather place the blame and responsibility on someone else than take the initiative to better himself.
4. Family dynamics.
People who grow up with a narcissistic parent often see clear examples of legit grievances vs. scapegoating. For example, if there’s more than one sibling, the “golden child” may take money from the mother’s purse to get whatever he wants with no punishment, whereas the other siblings will be called leeches if they dare to ask for bus fare. That’s a legitimate grievance caused by a dysfunctional family dynamic.
Compare this to the scapegoat child who’s blamed for everything that goes wrong in the house, regardless of whether they were involved or not. If something breaks while they’re at school, that’s somehow still their fault. The golden child ate three times their fair share of the food and is still hungry? Then it’s the scapegoat’s fault for eating like a pig, even though they only had a tiny portion, and so on.
5. Unhealthy friendship dynamics.
Not all friendships are healthy ones. In fact, some people have so-called “friends” who bully them or otherwise make them feel like crap about themselves under the guise of playing around and just making jokes. This is a legitimate grievance and deserves either a punishment or an end to that relationship.
This is in stark contrast to someone who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong in their friend’s life. If their partner breaks up with them, then it’s because their friend coerced them into having one too many drinks, so they ended up cheating. They’re short on rent? Well, then their friend shouldn’t have invited them to that concert, and shouldn’t have allowed them to buy drinks for everyone at the bar afterwards, etc.
6. Fraught parent-child relationships.
Being a parent isn’t easy, especially if one’s child ends up making questionable life choices. It’s a perfectly legitimate grievance for a parent to be frustrated with an adult child who needs constant parental intervention, from bail and legal support to rehab, emergency childcare, and so on. Instead of having calm, peaceful golden years, they’re constantly on edge, wondering when the next call from emergency services may come in.
This is quite different from a parent who blames their adult child for ruining their life by having the audacity to a) be born, and b) not be the child they ordered. A perfect example is a mother who berates her child for ruining her body and forcing her to slave away for years to keep them alive.
7. Neighborhood dynamics.
In neighborhood communities, tensions can run high when someone repeatedly violates community rules. For example, hosting excessively loud parties at 3 am despite multiple complaints, or letting their property become genuinely hazardous to others. If neighbors respectfully come together to address this behavior, that’s a reasonable response to an actual problem.
In contrast, scapegoating occurs when one neighbor or group of neighbors gets unfairly singled out and blamed for every problem in the area, often simply because they are different from the majority in that area, i.e., because of their race, age, socioeconomic status, or other demographic factor. Dog waste on the sidewalk? Must be them, even though they don’t own a dog. Package stolen? Probably their “sketchy friends,” despite zero evidence.
They become the default scapegoat for anything that goes wrong in the neighborhood simply because of their differences, while the actual culprits continue their behavior unchecked.
Final thoughts…
As you can see, there are very clear differences between scapegoating and legitimate grievances. Unfortunately, those who are fond of both therapy speak and avoiding accountability for their actions will often cry scapegoat to abdicate responsibility for wrongdoing.
The problem is, if they’re ever actually falsely accused of wrongdoing, nobody will believe them. This is why it’s so important to not only tell the difference between these two issues, but to avoid conflating them for personal benefit. Otherwise, everyone ends up suffering, and the concept of a scapegoat loses all legitimacy.
