A microaggression is the casual degradation of any marginalised group. Although this may seem like a complicated concept when studied, closer examples can be seen in everyday life and the effects can often have inconspicuous results.
Many of you may not be aware of the casual racism and sexism you have witnessed but the following examples (relevant for the USA and UK mainly) may enlighten you as to how discreet this racism may be to a point where even the most woke individuals of society do not notice it. When asking a PoC (whether this be brown, black, Latino etc.) where they are from, many people are genuinely interested in learning about a foreign culture and what it’s like to experience two cultures in one country. However, this can often be condescending and can imply that the questioner is assuming the PoC is foreign-born which can be offensive to some as it suggests they cannot be considered an American or Britain because of the colour of their skin.
Assigning intelligence according to race is also a prime example of an everyday microagression. Being surprised or patronising when a PoC achieves a good grade is saying that their race is known to be less intelligent. Assuming an Asian is good at maths or science is a huge generalisation and displays ignorance to consider Asians as a collective rather than individuals. Paying more attention to your purse or crossing the road when a black person is approaching means falling for the violent stereotype that comes nowhere near applying to a whole community.
“Many of these examples come to light but are brushed aside as “locker room banter” but this leads to the majority laughing off microagressions until eventually they take over to become the new normal”
Microagressions can be applied to sexism as well. Tone policing is a prime example. Women who behave assertively are automatically branded as bossy whereas a man is showing control. Mansplaining is when someone feels the need to dumb down an idea so that it can be understood by a women, because for some reason we are incompetent. Gender stereotypes like “you run like a girl” and using ‘feminine’ words like p*ssy as an insult implies girls are inferior to boys although this is not apparent at the surface.
Many of these examples come to light but are brushed aside as “locker room banter.” This leads to the majority laughing off microaggressions until they take over to become the new normal. Telling a girl not to go out at night or dictating what she can and can’t wear, although usually said just to look out for the individual, implies women should live according to a rape timetable and encourages a society where we teach women how to avoid rape rather than demanding that men should stop committing the crime. It leads to the refusal to acknowledge rape victims as what they are — victims! Recently it has become public that a Judge in Canada resigned after a comment made to a rape victim saying she should have just “kept her knees together”. Whilst the resignation does restore some faith in humanity, the fact that someone with those attitudes would be allowed to handle a case of that matter and obtain such a high position is absurd. We need to expose more people like former Judge Camp so that we can be one step closer to reaching a society where girls are not afraid to be out alone.
Now that I’ve made identifying everyday microaggressions in society somewhat easier, we can work together to try and put an end to them, for example calling someone out when they use a racial slur or confronting our peers when they use p*ssy as an insult. Hopefully,by doing this, we can eradicate the acceptance of locker room banter and a situation like the current Presidency of the United States does not happen again.
