Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

   Learning about microaggressions this past week has really opened my eyes and made me become more aware of conversations around me. While I did not find an example of microaggrssion this past week, I remember certain situations and conversations that fit into this definition. My husband and I have a friend that is very blunt in his comments and also jokes around quite a bit. I remember multiple occasions where our friends likes to make jokes about women. Many of these jokes pertain to women's stereotypical role in the household. Many of his jokes would involve women having the job of being in the kitchen and cleaning the house. While many of us either laughed or wrote his comments off, I can see now that his comments indeed were microaggressive. While he did not mean any harm in his comments and jokes, they were still very offensive and insulting. I remember my actions during his comments were mainly just to roll my eyes at him and come back with a sarcastic remark. Now I find that putting a clear definition to what he was doing brings me a whole new perspective. If someone else was on the receiving end of his jokes that did not know him very well, that person may as well be extremely offended by his comments.

   Keeping an open ear this week for microaggressions has really taught me that discrimination and prejudice does not necessarily mean that someone is intentionally trying to be offensive or hurtful. We see that stereotypes can be brought out because someone is being microagressive to another person. Whether the person feels that they have more power in the relationship to say those comments or the ideals are inherited from someone's family background, being microagressive is definitely unintentional and looking into our own biases can help us prevent the cycle of microaggression. I have learned this week that if I do not want to be unintentionally microaggressive then I really have to look into my own background, beliefs, and biases so that I am fully aware of how I feel towards others. The effects of this can be hurtful since microaggression is something that can be unintentional. People that have been victims of a microaggression can have feelings of being marginalized even by the ones that they are close to which is why I believe knowing our own biases can help in this process.