Microaggressions happen to people everyday regardless if there intentional or unintentional. When communicating with other's we need to be aware of and sensitive to other's feelings and background. Recently I witnessed a microaggression occur between a husband and wife. My husband and I were invited over to another couple's house for dinner with other couples. Before dinner the couple who was hosting the dinner was showing us a room they recently painted. Knowing the wife painted the room herself, a comment was made by one of the other couples stating "You did a nice job painting this room." The husband replied. "Yeah it turned out pretty good, considering a girl did it." This is an example of a microaggression against a girl because of her gender. Although it was a harmless comment made by her husband, it still suggested that a woman is inferior to a man when it comes to painting. Normally I would take this type of comment simply as a bad joke however, after learning about microaggressions I recognize this situation as such.
Things that I noticed this week when looking for microaggressions, was that there seemed to be a lot of settle occurrences. All of the microaggressions that I noticed were based on typical stereotypes that many people have. Many of these times I would not have noticed, but when simply looking for them it was obvious. While people are not intentionally trying to hurt other's feelings, it is important that we all think about consequences of our comments.
Angie,
ReplyDeleteI am also much more aware now of the consequences of what we say. I'm curious, did the husband's comment seem to bother the wife?
Angie,
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing how much more aware we are of these comments now? Like you, before this class, I would have taken that as a bad joke. Now I see it as something different.