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How Microaggressions Can Affect Wellbeing In The Workplace

This article is more than 4 years old.

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I recently did an informal study over a period of few months where I noted down the first thing that people said to me when they met me.

The top five were:

“Where are you from?”

“I love Indian food”

“Your English is very good”

“How long are you here for?”

“I loved Slumdog Millionaire”

Well-meaning, but a tad odd, don’t you think? These have happened to me at business networking events and conferences. I have only found them mildly irritating, but these are examples of subvert everyday racism, assumptions that are made because of my skin color, and just a few examples of what micro-aggressions look like.

Micro-aggressions are defined asbrief 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."  As a person from a minority community in a workplace, this kind of instances can occur quite often even when there is no blatant and explicit discrimination or harassment.

Race alone is not the focus of such microinvalidations and micro-aggressions but can be based on other minority social identities such as sexual orientation, gender, class, and so on. These can often be ignored in the workplace because there is no explicit intent to degrade, exclude or to discriminate. Microaggressions are a result of the implicit bias that people carry with them.

The fourth annual Women in the Workplace report from LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co highlighted the gender-based microaggressions still faced by women in the 2018 workforce and showed that 64% of women are still exposed to this form of discrimination, with non-white women experiencing it the more than anyone else.

"Am I over-reacting?"

Often you might feel irritated and 'othered' by such comments and questions. But then question your own judgment and your reaction, and wonder if you were indeed over-reacting. Often, such microinvalidations and aggressions are disguised as humor. But, making fun of someone's accent, height or ethnicity is not a joke. The intent might not be malicious, and it is mostly borne out of ignorance, but such comments tend to reinforce the differences and the non-conformity of any minority community from the majority demographic.

When a suggestion is made, mostly as a joke, that a person has been given a job to increase the diversity of an organization, it can certainly create imposter syndrome, making the targeted person believe that they are not there on merit, rather because of their difference. Using a person's preferred pronoun (they/him/her) is not just an exercise in meaningless identity politics, but a sign of respect to an individual's innermost identity and their dignity. Anything else is a sign of microaggression and prejudice.

Psychologists and educators have shown that "stereotype threat" can cause an achievement gap. When a negative stereotype is associated with a certain group that a person is naturally assigned membership of because of their skin color, gender or race, it has been shown to have an impact not only on a person's performance but also their well-being. Studies in the psychology of stigma have shown how such a "stereotype threat" can create feelings of anxiety, and have a serious impact on a person's mental health and well-being.

Psychologist Dorainne J. Levy says that often in such cases  "There's uncertainty about whether or not your experience was due to your race, for example, or due to something unrelated, such as the other person being in a bad mood or having a bad day. That uncertainty is distressing." Trying to figure out what happened can consume cognitive resources, and can lead to an increase in stress hormones, and is akin to being bullied.

It is not just one man or two making locker room jokes. It is not just men sharing jokes about women on social media and WhatsApp groups, talking about their ‘time of the month’, telling them that they ‘belong in the kitchen’, or using derogatory language and sexual harassment disguised as ‘banter’ and ‘compliment’ because ‘boys will be boys’ and they need to have their fun. These implicit prejudices are often disguised with ‘oh it is only a joke’. It is easy to ignore such seemingly minor comments and some have even questioned whether chastising and banning these interactions between colleagues are detrimental to positive and convivial workplace culture. But, these microaggressions never exist in isolation. They are indicative of the insidious underlying implicit unconscious biases existing in our society and have to be called out.

It is important to create safe, non-judgmental spaces in an organization to discuss this. It is also important to criticize the microaggression rather than the microaggressor so that the focus remains on how that statement has made the other person feel rather than apportioning blame. If you are the microaggressor, use empathy and do not get defensive. Try and acknowledge and recognize your unconscious biases, reflect on them and the hurt your words might have caused. For others, it is important to act as an ally rather than speaking out for someone else who has suffered microaggression since this is an act of aggression itself, dehumanizing them and indicating that they do not have their own voice and cannot stand up for themselves.

Microaggressions are causes and symptoms of larger systemic and structural problems. Calling out microaggressions can serve as a deterrent. Accountability and empathy together can help to create more thoughtful and inclusive communication across all the divides of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Overall, it is important to recognize that jokes about anyone's race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation are never ok. They perpetuate the racism and sexism that exists in this society, and even though they might seem harmless, they reinforce discrimination and prejudice. And, they affect the mental health and well-being in the workplace.

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