The question about my own origin always baffles me. I am a white woman who is living about an hour from where I grew up. Yet once or twice a month, I get asked where I am from. Um, down the road a bit? I chalked it up to random conversation making at first, but when i mentioned it to my sisters, I found that NO ONE ever asks them. I started asking people why they were asking. Oh, I am not rude or anything. They say “where are you from?” and I reply with my original hometown, and then smile and say why do you ask?
I am sometimes told it’s because they don’t recognize my family name. I’ve also been told I don’t sound like I am from around here a couple of times.
I don’t feel excluded or “other” when i am asked this, though, and I think that’s why it doesn’t bother me. If there was an undercurrent of rejection, I would feel very differently about it. And I am never asked to say where I am REALLY from. When I am asked, the answer is always accepted. I am never pressed for the “real” answer.
What it reinforces is my belief that all most people want to talk about is themselves, their beliefs, what they ate for lunch; and that the rest of humanity is their audience. A quiet audience that just listens.
I’ve used exactly that terminology to both boys and girls, substituting “young man” or “young lady” as appropriate but in both cases berating the same behaviour.
Anyone that would consider my language a “micro-aggression” is most definitely being hypersensitive and ignorant.
My wife’s an archaeologist, and for the past week she’s been on a watching brief - basically, keeping an eye on a construction team to make sure they don’t destroy any archaeology.
Every day she’s come home annoyed at the level of sexism that she’s been subjected to. For example:
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*Constantly being called “darling” and similar names
*Being offered a smaller spade when excavating possible archaeological features
*Builders offering to do the excavation (you know, the thing she’s trained to do and they’re not, hence the reason she’s there) for her
*Having her kit taken off her and carried to site for her
*People getting in the way when she’s driving off the site because they’re trying to direct her manoeuvres
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Taken in isolation, none of these actions would be particularly annoying; however, it creates a constant low-level buzz, like Chinese water torture. Of course, my instinct is to mansplain that they’re just trying to be nice, they don’t know any better, it could be worse etc., which is just another rich douchey layer on this shit sundae. Luckily I know when to shut up.
Microagressions have been explained to me as building a mosaic. Nobody thinks that their particular tile is particularly egregious, so they don’t see anything wrong with adding it, especially when the alternative is changing their perspective or admitting that their behaviour could be construed as sexist/racist/whatever. It’s only when you take the time to step back and look at the whole mosaic when you realise that it’s creating a pretty ugly picture. People get bogged down in discussing whether it’s this tile that’s the issue or that tile, and look over here, there’s a whole other mosaic that’s worse than this one, and eventually people are just going to need to shut the hell up and start using different tiles.
Considering how many threads there have been about people getting annoyed that people make the same dumb jokes to them at the checkout, or because they’re tall, or because their name is spelled odd, it’s surprising that so many people get their hackles up about thinking that the same thing can happen to women, or black people, or disabled people.
I think it is because you in your internal view of yourself don’t see obvious visual features, no one has tall or fat or black as part of their self image aside from minor physical details.
But of course others are mostly seeing you in a visual manner, not your inner dialogue. So it is kind of jarring.
Yes, as we all should do when trying to educate children
wait, what…seriously? where the hell did that come from?
Well then I rest my case. If a comment so innocuous can cause such a reaction then I think we are all fucked and best to retreat from any human interaction at all.
I think this is really the crux of the matter. There’s a world of difference between somebody saying something concerning a stereotype out of ignorance or stupidity, and someone deliberately trying to offend/irritate someone that way.
For example, if someone calls me “Big fella”, I may not really like it, but it’s worlds away from “Hey fatass”, and I realize that the Big Fella guy probably doesn’t really mean anything insulting, while the second guy IS deliberately trying to provoke me or insult me. There’s definitely aggression involved with the second guy, but the first guy, not so much. Just stupidity.
Maybe micro-insensitivities is a better term than micro-aggressions, since 99.999% of them have no aggressive component, but usually have an ignorant or stupid insensitive component.
Actual aggression is individual, and can be dealt with on an individual basis.
Microaggression is unconscious and collective. Instances are individual, but dealing with the instances on an individual basis is trying to drain the sea with a sieve. It’s useful to have a separate term for "well-meaning but ignorant shit that makes people’s lives worse.
I don’t think anyone is saying the microaggressor (that may not be a word) is a bad person, or guilty of anything except cluelessness. But even without intent, we are contributing to the problem.
I think the problem is with the term. “Aggression” is a word that implies intent - aggressive intent.
Hence, the term is actively working against acceptance of the concept, because most people - even on liberal message boards like the Dope - perceive that labelling something as “aggression” where none is meant is excessvely sensitive. For proof, see poll numbers above.
But again, that’s the point. As long as people can say, “well, I didn’t mean anything,” that’s an excuse. Then they don’t have to change their behavior. It’s also kind of blaming the victim.
In this thread, a lot of people seem committed to seeing them as whole incidents. The metric prefix micro- is one millionth. Maybe that will help:
The aggressor is only committing one millionth of an aggression. That’s not so bad.
The victim receives a millions of them. That’s pretty bad. And you never know whether your insignificant one-millionth of an aggression is their millionth one-millionth.
The problem with this microaggression crap is that it never stops. Why should my freedom of speech be taken away and why should I be subject to harassment by authorities unless I speak in a perfect, politically correct way? Sure, using the n-word or making crude remarks around women, that can be avoided. But this never stops. As a white man anything I do or say is potentially microaggression unless I basically follow a script like those Indian call center employees for every possible interaction. That’s stupid and not the way to make progress.
So damn straight I shouldn’t have to change my behavior. Hell yeah, it’s the “victim’s” fault for not having a thicker skin.
My point is that while she might dislike their attitude,
She isn’t the same as them. They are blue collar workers and men. She is not. If the owner of the company came out they might give him similar deference.
They are trying to be helpful. I think there is a vast gulf between “need a hand with this heavy gear, miss” and “what’s a skirt like you doing on a job-site?”
Anything can be misconstrued. That’s the point. If the “victim” has decided you’re a racist/sexist/whatever, nothing you can say will not sound like racism/sexism/bigotry.