Microaggressions in Everyday Life. Derald Wing Sue

Microaggressions in Everyday Life

“Men and women have equal opportunities for achievement.” The playing field is even so if women cannot make it, the problem is with them. Pathologizing Cultural Values/Communication Styles Notion that values and communication styles of dominant/White culture are ideal Asking a Black person: “Why do you have to be so loud/animated?” “Just calm down.” Assimilate to the dominant culture. To an Asian or Latinx person: “Why are you so quiet? We want to know what you think. Be more verbal.” “Speak up more.” Something is wrong with you. Dismissing an individual who brings up race/culture in work/school setting. Leave your cultural baggage outside. Second‐Class Citizen When target group member receives differential treatment from power group Person of color is mistaken for a service worker. People of color are servants to Whites. Female doctor is mistaken for a nurse. Women occupy nurturing roles and couldn’t possibly be physicians. Having a taxi pass a person of color and pick up a White passenger. Being ignored at a store counter as attention is given to the White customer behind a person of color. You are likely to cause trouble and/or travel to a dangerous neighborhood. Whites are more valued customers than people of color. A lesbian woman is not invited out with a group of girlfriends because they thought she would be bored if they were talking to men. You don't belong. Traditional Gender Role Prejudicing and Stereotyping Expectations of traditional roles or stereotypes are conveyed When a female student asked a male professor for extra help on a chemistry assignment, he asks, “What do you need to work on this for anyway?” Women are less capable in math and science. A person asks a woman her age and, upon hearing she is 31, looks quickly at her ring finger. Women should be married during child‐bearing ages because that is their primary purpose. A woman is assumed to be a lesbian because she does not put a lot of effort into her appearance. Lesbians do not care about being attractive to others. Sexual Objectification Women are treated as if they are objects at men's disposal A male stranger puts his hands on a woman's hips or on the small of her back to pass by her. Your body is not yours. Whistles and catcalls as a woman walks down the street. Your body/appearance is for men's enjoyment and pleasure. Assumption of Abnormality Implication that there is something wrong with being LGBTQ Two men holding hands in public are stared at by strangers. You should keep your displays of affection private because they are offensive. Students use the term “gay” to describe a fellow student who is socially ostracized at school. A trans woman is asked in a dorm elevator, “Are you a boy or a girl?” People who are gay are weird and different. People must fit into one category in a male‐female gender binary.

Many microaggressions are common across various marginalized groups, but there are differences in types, hidden messages, and impact. Manifestation of microaggressions is contingent upon context and conventional stereotypes that are supported in those contexts. For instance, women may experience a unique microaggression such as “sexual objectification” that is not present for heterosexual men, regardless of racial‐group membership. And there are distinctions within categories. In other words, racial microaggressions are not experienced in the same way by individuals across racial groups. In the United States, for example, Asian Americans and Latinx individuals are more likely to experience “alien in one's own land” messages than are African Americans, who are more likely to be seen as “criminals.” Please note that we elaborate on similarities and differences in microaggressive manifestations across group and context in Chapter 7, where we also address cutting‐edge research on the intersectional nature of microaggressions (within‐group differences).

Microinsults and Microinvalidations: Common Themes

The original racial microaggression taxonomy proposed by D. W. Sue, Capodilupo, et al. (2007) was later refined to include gender and sexual‐orientation themes. Here we present D. W. Sue and Capodilupo's (2008) revised taxonomy and describe some of the more common themes with their hidden messages.

Microinsults

Microinsults are characterized by verbal and nonverbal interpersonal exchanges that convey stereotypes, rudeness, and insensitivity and that demean a person's racial, gender, sexual orientation, heritage, or identity. Microinsults represent subtle snubs, frequently outside the perpetrator’s conscious awareness, but they convey an often‐hidden insulting message to recipients. Common microinsult themes are:

Ascription of intelligence. This microinsult is related to perceptions of intellect, competence, and capabilities and plays out differently for members of different racial and ethnic groups. Saying to African American individuals, for instance, “You are a credit to your race” contains an insulting metacommunication (“African Americans are generally not as intelligent as Whites”). In her 2014 Ted talk, spoken word artist and social justice educator Dr. Jamila Lyiscott discussed how being referred to as “articulate” is not just an innocent utterance suggested as a compliment but rather an insult that ignores the historical context of racism. The belief that African Americans are intellectually inferior is a common microaggression (Jones, 1997; Mercer, Zeigler‐Hill, Wallace, & Hayes, 2011; Smedley & Smedley, 2005; Torres, Driscoll, & Burrow, 2010). When targets are Asian American, the microaggression often is the reverse—there is an assumption that Asians are highly intelligent, especially in math and science. Houshmand, Tafarodi, and Spanierman (2014) found support for this notion in a study with Asian international students in Canada. A Chinese woman reported, “Everybody thinks Chinese are good at math,” and a Chinese man stated that he felt like an anomaly as a history major because of others' preconceived notion about the interests and competencies of Chinese persons being focused on math and science. When considering gender microaggressions, we see ascription of intelligence at play when a male teacher expresses surprise at the math skills of a female student (“Wow, how did you get so good in math?”).

Assumption of abnormality. This theme is related to the perception that something about the person's race, gender, or sexual orientation is abnormal, deviant, or pathological. LGBTQ groups experience these microinsults frequently, especially in the area of sexual behavior that is equated with abnormality (Herek, 1998; Satcher & Leggett, 2007). When a gay man during a physical exam is suspected by a physician to have HIV/AIDS on the first visit, when students use the term “gay” to describe the odd or nonconformist behavior of a fellow classmate, and when someone expresses surprise that a lesbian is in a monogamous relationship, an assumption of abnormality is present. Examples of assumptions could be “LBGTQ people are promiscuous and engage in deviant sexual behavior” or “People who are

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