It might help at least the cis-female-white readers of this to reflect on their own experiences of this phenomenon. I recently discovered that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had exactly the same experience I did when I was in a male-dominated corporate world: at a meeting (often the sole female) I would make a point or suggestion that was completely ignored--until a male made the same comment, often in the same words, and everyone applauded. Certainly not all these men were openly sexist (a couple of them were) but they just couldn't HEAR a woman making sense.
Or a husband agreeing to "babysit" while you finish a brief.
I'm not saying these are at the same level as the microaggressions experienced by minorities of any race or gender. I'm just saying that if "majority" women just reflect on their own experiences they are much likelier to agree that such microaggressions are demoralizing and not something anyone has to swallow as a "permission" to belong to American culture.
I think another commonality where we (as women) are rarely heard is when seeking medical help. I know for myself I've dealt with a lot of microaggressions from medical professionals.
How often are men told "it's all in your head"? How long was it before the medical community acknowledged menopause, perimenopause, period pain, postpartum depression, etc...?
Like being made to take (and PAY) for a pregnancy test—no matter what symptoms you're presenting/issue you want help for—even after repeatedly saying there's no possibility you're pregnant. I started telling them "Unless you believe in the 2nd coming and that I'm personally involved, then no, there's zero possibility I'm pregnant."
Microaggressions are situational and I've really enjoyed the feedback from readers on my piece.
I'd love to hear from some men.
For example, a dear friend I've known 40 years now is an award winning elementary school teacher in K-3 classrooms for decades. He gets a LOT of well-meaning microaggressions and not so well-meaning ones because of his gender and chosen profession.
I'm an old cis-female-white-autistic individual who has a lesbian daughter. My daughter's partner is non-binary trans. When my daughter first talked about her partner when they were dating, she referred to them using the name they were using at the time, a name that was traditionally female. In my mind, I equated she/her with my daughter's partner. As my daughter soon explained to me, her partner was non-binary so the proper pronouns were they/them. Sometimes, when talking to my daughter I use she/her and my daughter immediately corrects me, which I appreciate. It's only by being aware of my mistake that I can change. I also realize that I'm more likely to make this mistake if I'm talking fast so I also try to slow down so I can think about what I'm talking about. We can all learn to do better but it is something that has to be conscious and constant.
I'm a White heterosexual old lady. One of my hobbies is linguistics, and I like to "collect" languages and accents. If someone speaks to me with an obvious accent, and seems to be amenable to chatting, I'll ask what their first language was. That's usually a good icebreaker, and they'll talk to me about all sorts of things. They usually sound very happy to do so. That's how I stay away from "Where are you from?" since they might have been in the US for twenty years, or generations, and are just as "American" as I am.
However, are there microagressions in there? I pat myself on the back because I think I've found a way to get to know people without insulting them, but for all I know I'm kidding myself that I'm not racist or prejudiced.
Also, if people don't tell me, how do I know if I've committed a micro or even macroaggression? I like to think I'm good at thinking about things from another person's perspective and acting accordingly, but how do I know?
Thank you for this perspective. I am a cisgender, heterosexual, white female who is a dual citizen of the US (born) and Sweden (married here), Jewish and the mother of two South Korean children. I hope I’m doing a decent job as a mother even though I cannot completely understand their experiences (I say children, but they are 24 and 27). My son is on the spectrum and has an IQ of 163. He has a BS and a MS and is now pursuing a degree at Columbia. My daughter had two strokes (at least one in utero) and has had challenges physically and with learning difficulties. But today she is an LPN here in Sweden. She tried the States, but experienced a lot of the “where are you really from” and other rude comments. Honestly, calling these things micro aggressions seems wrong -- a lot seem much more “macro”. I have become much more aware of how I think and say. Simply being a female or Jewish or having Asian children does not mean I don’t need to examine my beliefs and opinions. I hope many more of us will realize we are works in progress and that the progression is to make ourselves better humans and understanding of our “hidden” biases.
I am white, female, cisgender, hetero, and in my 50s. I'm also Jewish. Many of the microaggressions I've experienced were based on things no one thought about being negative when I was a child - for example, every year around Thanksgiving, the teacher would start Christmas activities, look around the room, see me (the only Jewish student in the room), and say, roughly, "Karen, I'm sure we all want to know about Jewish holidays too! You can tell us all about them!" Not only did I get tired of being singled out like that, but the rest of the class was really tired of listening to me explain Chanukah by middle school.
My experiences have ranged from that to a supervisor who made a stupid comment about me based on his misunderstanding of religion, refused to retract it, and ended up without a job - but was allowed to remain at work for 6 months, at the same site, until his contract expired, because that was easier and cheaper than firing him.
And even so - I could come up with a dozen examples without thinking, and significantly more if I thought about it - I realize that I have it much easier than many, because, while religion isn't genetic - it's cultural - it is not visible based on appearance. It's rare that someone looks at me and makes assumptions based on stereotypes... although there was that one woman in the grocery store who admired my Star of David, then told me, in the tone one uses for people who are presumed to not know better, that "those are for Jewish people". Based on the subsequent conversation, she believed that I couldn't be Jewish because my skin was too fair, my hair too blond, and my nose too small. But that's minor in the grand scheme of things, and if I'm concerned about going somewhere that it might be a problem, I can take it off. People of color can't remove their skins, nor should they be required to be anyone other than themselves, or expected to behave like whatever stereotype people have about them.
Still, it gives me a small window into what other people might experience - not much, but enough that I try to be very cautious about my assumptions. I enjoy learning about other people and their experiences, and will ask - but I try to keep my questions in the realm of "tell me something about yourself that you'd like me to know". Teaching middle school in a school with a vast range of racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as blended families that encompassed the entire range of the school, taught me not to make assumptions about anyone based on their appearance.
One of the great strengths of humanity is our ability to generalize - to know that a dachshund and a husky are both dogs, and place them in the same category - but that same ability can lead overgeneralization, to assuming that all things in a category are alike; after all, no one would expect a dachshund to pull a sled the way a husky can; dog or not, dachshunds simply don't have the musculature and mass for it, even if you could hook up several dozen at once. Likewise, when we generalize about groups of people, overgeneralization is going to creep in. The trick is to be aware of the tendency, and find out the truth before acting, or speaking, on assumptions based on those overgeneralizations.
"...every year around Thanksgiving, the teacher would start Christmas activities, look around the room, see me (the only Jewish student in the room), and say, roughly, 'Karen, I'm sure we all want to know about Jewish holidays too! You can tell us all about them!'"
For me it was being the only Indigenous student before Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. "Amelia, would you like to tell the class about Columbus meeting the Indians/the 1st Thanksgiving?"
"Everything you've been taught is a lie!" was definitely not the answer they were looking for.
I am a white woman born in Louisiana but moved away when I was 11 years old. Years later my husband and I moved to Athens, Georgia, and I got a job as a legal secretary in a local law firm. For about a month when I first went to work there, there were remarks made about Yankees. I finally got fed up and told people, “I’m not a Yankee. I was born and raised in Louisiana.” It wasn’t a teachable remark, more defensive, but it worked. The same type of thing happened when I was 11yo. My family moved from Louisiana to North Dakota, from a Catholic Cajun culture to a Scandinavian farming culture. Our “yes, ma’am” or “no, ma’am” or substitute sir, were perceived as sarcastic because of our Southern accent. My mother often told me that for the first year I came home from school crying practically every day. There are so many ways that the perception of “otherness” is attacked with micro aggression. Yes, it is a dominant factor in our culture. How do we teach the millions of people of a country that for 200 years has been taught through cultural indoctrination that “otherness” is someone who does not look like you, sound like you, think like you, or is someone who is just not born where you were? Yes, one-on-one teachable moments are great, but wouidn’t it be nice if our school texts and schools could be able to teach the truth about our history and take away the stigma of not being white by making it understood that we are all human beings with the same desires, passions, and even “bad apples”. Then perhaps we could start to see each person as an individual rather than “other” than me.
Unfortunately in this country there’s a ingrained colonialism that has so warped our society to see only that White Males count for anything! As I’ve said in other posts, Women, people of colors and gender diverse people like myself are marginalized in their(White males) collective minds! It’s demeaning, disgusting and Dangerous! With the hundreds of anti-LGBTQIA+ and Anti-Transgender bills being passed and proposed, our beautiful and diverse community families have to be hyper aware of just waking down the street! Red State politicians want us dead or in hiding! Hate has no place in a truly civilized world and it’s not clear that it will happen in this century! 😢😢😢
All I have to add to this terrific discussion is a giant "thank you", not just for Amelia's essay, but for all the thoughtful, heartfelt comments. Through friendships with a number of diverse individuals, I've become very aware of the biases they face, and the microaggressions they've had to deal with.
The issues are not just among cis-white-hetero-neurotypical "normies". One of my friends in grad school was a Chinese-American woman, who was born in China but raised in the USA, and she was married to a white man. She recounted several instances of overt discrimination, like being followed around a department store by security personnel, but she also had to deal with some bias from the Chinese community here. One incident she related was an experience in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. The wait-staff heard my friend and her husband speaking English and assumed she was American-born and didn't speak Chinese. So they started disparaging her openly, in Chinese. They were surprised and chastened when my friend ordered her meal in perfect Chinese, and added that she heard what they said about her. She thought it was hilarious.
Anyhow, as someone else commented, we are all works in progress, and we continue to learn. And when we know better, we do better. Again, thanks to all for this most excellent discussion.
There are so many examples I could list but a few take the cake. The time my mother's old doctor found small tumors in my mother's breast and said her lymph nodes had to be removed and she may as well have her breast removed although he admitted that the breast removal wasn't really necessary. My sister asked my mother if she was okay with her breast being removed even if it wasn't necessarily required and she said "No. Don't remove my breast then." The doctor said, "Why not? Why does she need it? She's old." I wish I had been there to ask if he was still in need of his balls.
Or the time I used to say with pride that I was a first generation American until one day, (I am a former educator) I got the stank eye from a couple of the white ladies on the teaching staff and they included the comment that my mother and I were lucky that she had managed to give birth to me on this side of the American border ( We lived in Texas at the time) even though all my siblings had been born in Chicago, years before. And then they followed-up with "Funny. You don't look or sound Mexican." Geez.
And so in 60+ years there are too many more examples to list of what I experienced or witnessed regarding micro (and full on) aggressive ageism, sexism, ableism, racism and general intolerance for so many human differences. It would be entertaining and enlightening to have a couple of hours and a glass or two of wine to discuss them all with this thoughtful, clever group you have assembled here.
Thanks, Uncle George, for this article. Wonderful food for thought. It brought back so many memories! I hope those who read it can take away some practical advice on how not to act and what not to say to people that don't look or speak, or think like you.
Philámayaye for sharing some of your experiences. My Sisters and I compare notes and laugh at the absurdity of some comments we get.
I was participating in an online forum about Indigenous languages and responded to someone that I knew spoke Lakȟótiyapi in the same language (my paternal side's language).
Another woman in the forum informed me it was very rude to participate in a public forum in a language everyone didn’t understand, then added "Speak English!"
I didn't have to respond, because a White woman immediately said, "Oh my God, you did not just tell an Indigenous woman to speak English instead of her own language in a forum about preserving Indigenous languages."
Thanks for writing this article on this topic. Loved your response. I should have a permanent concussion from all the head slaps because of all the stupid stuff people say out loud. I still feel sorry when I hear “Speak English!” whenever I or someone else dares to speak in their native tongue. Sometimes I confuse them by saying something like, “I have to practice! I have a test tomorrow.” It usually leaves them with furrowed brows.
It might help at least the cis-female-white readers of this to reflect on their own experiences of this phenomenon. I recently discovered that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had exactly the same experience I did when I was in a male-dominated corporate world: at a meeting (often the sole female) I would make a point or suggestion that was completely ignored--until a male made the same comment, often in the same words, and everyone applauded. Certainly not all these men were openly sexist (a couple of them were) but they just couldn't HEAR a woman making sense.
Or a husband agreeing to "babysit" while you finish a brief.
I'm not saying these are at the same level as the microaggressions experienced by minorities of any race or gender. I'm just saying that if "majority" women just reflect on their own experiences they are much likelier to agree that such microaggressions are demoralizing and not something anyone has to swallow as a "permission" to belong to American culture.
I think another commonality where we (as women) are rarely heard is when seeking medical help. I know for myself I've dealt with a lot of microaggressions from medical professionals.
How often are men told "it's all in your head"? How long was it before the medical community acknowledged menopause, perimenopause, period pain, postpartum depression, etc...?
Like being made to take (and PAY) for a pregnancy test—no matter what symptoms you're presenting/issue you want help for—even after repeatedly saying there's no possibility you're pregnant. I started telling them "Unless you believe in the 2nd coming and that I'm personally involved, then no, there's zero possibility I'm pregnant."
We all have experiences we can draw from to gain empathy and understanding. Thanks for sharing this experience.
Microaggressions are situational and I've really enjoyed the feedback from readers on my piece.
I'd love to hear from some men.
For example, a dear friend I've known 40 years now is an award winning elementary school teacher in K-3 classrooms for decades. He gets a LOT of well-meaning microaggressions and not so well-meaning ones because of his gender and chosen profession.
I'm an old cis-female-white-autistic individual who has a lesbian daughter. My daughter's partner is non-binary trans. When my daughter first talked about her partner when they were dating, she referred to them using the name they were using at the time, a name that was traditionally female. In my mind, I equated she/her with my daughter's partner. As my daughter soon explained to me, her partner was non-binary so the proper pronouns were they/them. Sometimes, when talking to my daughter I use she/her and my daughter immediately corrects me, which I appreciate. It's only by being aware of my mistake that I can change. I also realize that I'm more likely to make this mistake if I'm talking fast so I also try to slow down so I can think about what I'm talking about. We can all learn to do better but it is something that has to be conscious and constant.
I'm a White heterosexual old lady. One of my hobbies is linguistics, and I like to "collect" languages and accents. If someone speaks to me with an obvious accent, and seems to be amenable to chatting, I'll ask what their first language was. That's usually a good icebreaker, and they'll talk to me about all sorts of things. They usually sound very happy to do so. That's how I stay away from "Where are you from?" since they might have been in the US for twenty years, or generations, and are just as "American" as I am.
However, are there microagressions in there? I pat myself on the back because I think I've found a way to get to know people without insulting them, but for all I know I'm kidding myself that I'm not racist or prejudiced.
Also, if people don't tell me, how do I know if I've committed a micro or even macroaggression? I like to think I'm good at thinking about things from another person's perspective and acting accordingly, but how do I know?
Thank you for this perspective. I am a cisgender, heterosexual, white female who is a dual citizen of the US (born) and Sweden (married here), Jewish and the mother of two South Korean children. I hope I’m doing a decent job as a mother even though I cannot completely understand their experiences (I say children, but they are 24 and 27). My son is on the spectrum and has an IQ of 163. He has a BS and a MS and is now pursuing a degree at Columbia. My daughter had two strokes (at least one in utero) and has had challenges physically and with learning difficulties. But today she is an LPN here in Sweden. She tried the States, but experienced a lot of the “where are you really from” and other rude comments. Honestly, calling these things micro aggressions seems wrong -- a lot seem much more “macro”. I have become much more aware of how I think and say. Simply being a female or Jewish or having Asian children does not mean I don’t need to examine my beliefs and opinions. I hope many more of us will realize we are works in progress and that the progression is to make ourselves better humans and understanding of our “hidden” biases.
I am white, female, cisgender, hetero, and in my 50s. I'm also Jewish. Many of the microaggressions I've experienced were based on things no one thought about being negative when I was a child - for example, every year around Thanksgiving, the teacher would start Christmas activities, look around the room, see me (the only Jewish student in the room), and say, roughly, "Karen, I'm sure we all want to know about Jewish holidays too! You can tell us all about them!" Not only did I get tired of being singled out like that, but the rest of the class was really tired of listening to me explain Chanukah by middle school.
My experiences have ranged from that to a supervisor who made a stupid comment about me based on his misunderstanding of religion, refused to retract it, and ended up without a job - but was allowed to remain at work for 6 months, at the same site, until his contract expired, because that was easier and cheaper than firing him.
And even so - I could come up with a dozen examples without thinking, and significantly more if I thought about it - I realize that I have it much easier than many, because, while religion isn't genetic - it's cultural - it is not visible based on appearance. It's rare that someone looks at me and makes assumptions based on stereotypes... although there was that one woman in the grocery store who admired my Star of David, then told me, in the tone one uses for people who are presumed to not know better, that "those are for Jewish people". Based on the subsequent conversation, she believed that I couldn't be Jewish because my skin was too fair, my hair too blond, and my nose too small. But that's minor in the grand scheme of things, and if I'm concerned about going somewhere that it might be a problem, I can take it off. People of color can't remove their skins, nor should they be required to be anyone other than themselves, or expected to behave like whatever stereotype people have about them.
Still, it gives me a small window into what other people might experience - not much, but enough that I try to be very cautious about my assumptions. I enjoy learning about other people and their experiences, and will ask - but I try to keep my questions in the realm of "tell me something about yourself that you'd like me to know". Teaching middle school in a school with a vast range of racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as blended families that encompassed the entire range of the school, taught me not to make assumptions about anyone based on their appearance.
One of the great strengths of humanity is our ability to generalize - to know that a dachshund and a husky are both dogs, and place them in the same category - but that same ability can lead overgeneralization, to assuming that all things in a category are alike; after all, no one would expect a dachshund to pull a sled the way a husky can; dog or not, dachshunds simply don't have the musculature and mass for it, even if you could hook up several dozen at once. Likewise, when we generalize about groups of people, overgeneralization is going to creep in. The trick is to be aware of the tendency, and find out the truth before acting, or speaking, on assumptions based on those overgeneralizations.
Oof, did this ever resonate:
"...every year around Thanksgiving, the teacher would start Christmas activities, look around the room, see me (the only Jewish student in the room), and say, roughly, 'Karen, I'm sure we all want to know about Jewish holidays too! You can tell us all about them!'"
For me it was being the only Indigenous student before Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. "Amelia, would you like to tell the class about Columbus meeting the Indians/the 1st Thanksgiving?"
"Everything you've been taught is a lie!" was definitely not the answer they were looking for.
I am a white woman born in Louisiana but moved away when I was 11 years old. Years later my husband and I moved to Athens, Georgia, and I got a job as a legal secretary in a local law firm. For about a month when I first went to work there, there were remarks made about Yankees. I finally got fed up and told people, “I’m not a Yankee. I was born and raised in Louisiana.” It wasn’t a teachable remark, more defensive, but it worked. The same type of thing happened when I was 11yo. My family moved from Louisiana to North Dakota, from a Catholic Cajun culture to a Scandinavian farming culture. Our “yes, ma’am” or “no, ma’am” or substitute sir, were perceived as sarcastic because of our Southern accent. My mother often told me that for the first year I came home from school crying practically every day. There are so many ways that the perception of “otherness” is attacked with micro aggression. Yes, it is a dominant factor in our culture. How do we teach the millions of people of a country that for 200 years has been taught through cultural indoctrination that “otherness” is someone who does not look like you, sound like you, think like you, or is someone who is just not born where you were? Yes, one-on-one teachable moments are great, but wouidn’t it be nice if our school texts and schools could be able to teach the truth about our history and take away the stigma of not being white by making it understood that we are all human beings with the same desires, passions, and even “bad apples”. Then perhaps we could start to see each person as an individual rather than “other” than me.
Unfortunately in this country there’s a ingrained colonialism that has so warped our society to see only that White Males count for anything! As I’ve said in other posts, Women, people of colors and gender diverse people like myself are marginalized in their(White males) collective minds! It’s demeaning, disgusting and Dangerous! With the hundreds of anti-LGBTQIA+ and Anti-Transgender bills being passed and proposed, our beautiful and diverse community families have to be hyper aware of just waking down the street! Red State politicians want us dead or in hiding! Hate has no place in a truly civilized world and it’s not clear that it will happen in this century! 😢😢😢
All I have to add to this terrific discussion is a giant "thank you", not just for Amelia's essay, but for all the thoughtful, heartfelt comments. Through friendships with a number of diverse individuals, I've become very aware of the biases they face, and the microaggressions they've had to deal with.
The issues are not just among cis-white-hetero-neurotypical "normies". One of my friends in grad school was a Chinese-American woman, who was born in China but raised in the USA, and she was married to a white man. She recounted several instances of overt discrimination, like being followed around a department store by security personnel, but she also had to deal with some bias from the Chinese community here. One incident she related was an experience in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. The wait-staff heard my friend and her husband speaking English and assumed she was American-born and didn't speak Chinese. So they started disparaging her openly, in Chinese. They were surprised and chastened when my friend ordered her meal in perfect Chinese, and added that she heard what they said about her. She thought it was hilarious.
Anyhow, as someone else commented, we are all works in progress, and we continue to learn. And when we know better, we do better. Again, thanks to all for this most excellent discussion.
Philámayaye for your kind words.
There are so many examples I could list but a few take the cake. The time my mother's old doctor found small tumors in my mother's breast and said her lymph nodes had to be removed and she may as well have her breast removed although he admitted that the breast removal wasn't really necessary. My sister asked my mother if she was okay with her breast being removed even if it wasn't necessarily required and she said "No. Don't remove my breast then." The doctor said, "Why not? Why does she need it? She's old." I wish I had been there to ask if he was still in need of his balls.
Or the time I used to say with pride that I was a first generation American until one day, (I am a former educator) I got the stank eye from a couple of the white ladies on the teaching staff and they included the comment that my mother and I were lucky that she had managed to give birth to me on this side of the American border ( We lived in Texas at the time) even though all my siblings had been born in Chicago, years before. And then they followed-up with "Funny. You don't look or sound Mexican." Geez.
And so in 60+ years there are too many more examples to list of what I experienced or witnessed regarding micro (and full on) aggressive ageism, sexism, ableism, racism and general intolerance for so many human differences. It would be entertaining and enlightening to have a couple of hours and a glass or two of wine to discuss them all with this thoughtful, clever group you have assembled here.
Thanks, Uncle George, for this article. Wonderful food for thought. It brought back so many memories! I hope those who read it can take away some practical advice on how not to act and what not to say to people that don't look or speak, or think like you.
Philámayaye for sharing some of your experiences. My Sisters and I compare notes and laugh at the absurdity of some comments we get.
I was participating in an online forum about Indigenous languages and responded to someone that I knew spoke Lakȟótiyapi in the same language (my paternal side's language).
Another woman in the forum informed me it was very rude to participate in a public forum in a language everyone didn’t understand, then added "Speak English!"
I didn't have to respond, because a White woman immediately said, "Oh my God, you did not just tell an Indigenous woman to speak English instead of her own language in a forum about preserving Indigenous languages."
🎤⬇️
That's A+ allyship.
Thanks for writing this article on this topic. Loved your response. I should have a permanent concussion from all the head slaps because of all the stupid stuff people say out loud. I still feel sorry when I hear “Speak English!” whenever I or someone else dares to speak in their native tongue. Sometimes I confuse them by saying something like, “I have to practice! I have a test tomorrow.” It usually leaves them with furrowed brows.