Simply being the only woman (or one of the only women) in a department can make them feel left out, on guard, and pressured to perform. These manifestations of aggression don’t even have to be verbal: They can be nonverbal and environmental. This includes “having to provide more evidence of their competence or being mistaken for someone much more junior,” according to a joint report by and McKinsey & Company.
Women in the workplace experience microaggressions more than men do. A recent survey shows that 68 percent of Americans say microaggression in the workplace is a problem, with more than one quarter having experienced it personally and 36 percent being witness to it. The underlying reason doesn’t make that behavior less harmful, but it does make it very common. Still, microaggressions can be intentional. A person doesn’t necessarily mean to discriminate, but acts out of an implicit bias. Microaggressive behavior is often subconscious. What are microaggressions and how common are they?ĭerald Wing Sue, the preeminent psychologist on microaggressions, defines them as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group.” Microaggressions need to be recognized for what they are and reacted to as they occur in order for change to happen.
The cost of this behavior, whether in the workplace or in society at large, is incalculable and cumulative. There’s a name for these messages: microaggressions, and they’re as destructive as they are commonplace. They may be dismissed as “just jokes,” but comments that discriminate, degrade, or exclude (no matter how small) are anything but.
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