Recognizing and
Challenging
Micromessaging
CENTER FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

Checking Assumptions
• No one is immune from inheriting individual, institutional and
societal biases associated with social identities
• Socialized into racist, sexists, heterosexist, and cissexist beliefs
• What is cissexism?
– We live in a society that assumes gender based on genitals. When we are
born, we are assigned a gender based on our genitals
– “Transgender” refers to people who do not identify with the gender they
were assigned at birth
– Cissexism is the belief and treatment of transgender people as inferior to
cissexual (non-trans) people

Checking Assumptions Continued
• The danger of these beliefs/biases lies in their nature, which is:
– Invisible to the perpetrator
– Subtle
– Usually outside the level of conscious awareness
• The presumed innocuous impact of the enactment of these bias
make micromessaging one of the most harmful forms of
oppression

Exploring Microaggressions As A Form
Of Micromessaging
• The term was originally developed in 1970 by Chester M. Pierce,
a Harvard psychiatrist, as a way to refer to both verbal and non-
verbal racial indignities targeting African Americans
• Discussion of microaggressions often focuses on race. However, it
is important to note that the term can be used to describe slights
directed towards other marginalized groups
• Alvin Poussaint refers to the cumulative impact of experiencing
microaggressions as “death by a thousand nicks.”

Definitions
• Microaggressions: The
everyday verbal, nonverbal,
and environmental slights,
snubs, or insults, whether
intentional or unintentional,
which communicate hostile,
derogatory, or negative
messages to target persons
based solely upon their
marginalized group
membership

Definitions Continued
• Microinsults: Behaviors,
actions, or verbal remarks
that convey rudeness,
insensitivity, or demean a
person’s group or social
identity or heritage (Sue, et.
al. 2007)
• Themes include:
– Criminality/Assumption of
criminal status
– Ascription of Intelligence
– Second-class citizen
– Assumption of Abnormality

Definitions Continued
• Microinvalidations: Actions
that exclude, negate, or
nullify the psychological
thoughts, feelings or
experiential reality of people
who represent different
groups (Sue, et. al. 2007)
• Themes
– Alien in one’s own land
– Color blindness
– Denial of racism
– Myth of meritocracy

Definitions Continued
• Microassaults: Conscious and intentional actions or slurs, such
as using racial epithets or deliberately serving a White person
before a person of colour in a restaurant (Sue, et. al. 2007)
• Most likely to occur:
1) Where anonymity is present
2) Where the individual feels safe to express that belief, such as with like-
minded individuals
3) When the individual loses control

Impact of Microaggressions
• May more strongly and negatively impact the well-being and
self-esteem of oppressed individuals and groups than traditional,
more overt acts of racism, sexism, cissexism, and heterosexism
• Specific impacts for oppressed include:
– Invalidation of group identity or experiential reality
– Sends the message that they are lesser human beings
– Suggests they do not belong with the majority group
– Threatens and intimidates
– Relegates them to inferior status and treatment

Racial Microaggressions
• Generally occur below the level
of awareness of well-intentioned
individuals
• Aversive Racism can be
compared to racial
microaggressions
• Aversive racists believe that
they champion egalitarian
values, are non-prejudiced, and
would never deliberately
discriminate, however, they
harbor unconscious biased
attitudes that have the potential
to results in oppressive actions.

Examples Of Racial Microaggressions
Theme Microaggression Message
Color Blindness
Statements that indicate that a White
person does not want to acknowledge
race
“When I look at you, I don’t see color.”
“America is a melting pot.”
Denying a person of color’s racial /
ethnic experiences.
Assimilate / acculturate to the
dominant culture.
Denying the individual as a racial /
cultural being.
Ascription of Intelligence
Assigning intelligence to a person of
color on the basis of their race.
“You are a credit to your race.”
“You are so articulate.”
Asking an Asian person to help with a
Math or Science problem.
People of color are generally not as
intelligent as Whites.
It is unusual for someone of your race
to be intelligent.
All Asians are intelligent and good in
Math / Sciences.
Wing, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, Esquilin (2007).

Gender Microaggressions
• “Devalue women’s
contributions, objectify them
as sex objects, dismiss their
accomplishments and limit
their effectiveness in
educational environments”
(Morrison & Morrison, 2002)

Examples Of Gender Microaggressions
Theme Microaggression Message
Second-Class Citizen
Occurs when a target group
member receives differential
treatment from the power
group.
In class, an instructor tends
to call on male students
more frequently than female
ones.
The contributions of female
students are less worthy
than the contributions of
male students.
Sexist Language
Terms that exclude or
degrade women.
Use of the pronoun “he” to
refer to all people.
Male experience is universal.
Female experience is
invisible.Wing, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, Esquilin (2007).

Sexual Orientation Microaggressions
• LGB microaggressions fit into nine categories:
1) Use of heterosexist terminology
2) Endorsement of heteronormative culture and behaviors
3) Assumption of universal LGBT experience
4) Exoticization
5) Discomfort or disapproval of the LGB experience
6) Denial of societal heterosexism
7) Assumption of sexual pathology or abnormality
8) Denial of individual heterosexism
9) Threatening physical behaviors

Examples of Sexual Orientation
Microaggressions
Theme Microaggression Message
Denial of Individual
Heterosexism
A statement made when bias is
denied.
“I’m not homophobic. I have gay
friends.”
I could never be oppressive
toward LGB people because I
have friends who are gay.
Heterosexist Language
Terms that exclude or degrade
LGBT persons.
Someone asking a lesbian woman
“so who is the man in the
relationship?”
A relationship is only valid when
there is a male figure present
Wing, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, Esquilin (2007).

Transgender Microaggressions
• Conflate sexual non-
normativity with gender
nonnormativity
• Microaggressors address
trans people with incorrect
gender pronouns, call them
by former names, inquire
about their “real” identity,
ask them to explain their
gender identity, and deny or
fail to acknowledge their
pronouns, name, or identity
(Nadal, Skolnik, and Wong 2012;Nordmarken 2012; Nordmarken
and Kelly, forthcoming)

Examples Of Transgender
Microaggressions
Theme Microaggression Message
Cissexist Language
Terms that exclude or
degrade transgender
individuals
Being forced to choose Male
or Female when completing
basic forms.
Transgender erasure and
invisibility
Missgendering
To deliberately call someone
a gender other than what
they are presenting.
A trans man is miss-
gendered by his professors
(whether intentionally or
unintentionally)
Your identity is of no
consequence to me and/or
your expression and
mannerisms do not fit my
stereotypical view of your
gender
Wing, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, Esquilin (2007).

What Do Microaggressions Say About
Us?
• Active manifestations of our
perspectives and worldview
of:
– Inclusion/exclusion
– Superiority/inferiority
– Normality/abnormality
– Desirability/undesirability

Physical Impacts of Microaggressions
• Overall, poorer health
• Positively correlated with depression (Araujo & Borrell, 2006)
• Increased suicidal ideation, increased state & trait anxiety, and
increased depression (Hwang & Goto, 2008)
• Increased blood pressure levels (James, Lovato, & Khoo, 1994, as
cited by Sue, 2010)

Microaggressions & Tech Students
• Negatively impacts the recruitment, retention and success of
underrepresented student populations
• Impacts student’s performance on exams and assignments
• Affects problem-solving ability and work productivity
• Have students and colleagues question their qualifications

More Harmful Impacts
• More likely experience being “the only one” that leads to feelings
of isolation and loneliness (Alexander & Moore, 2008)
• Lack mentors who possess knowledge of the “minority
experience” (Stanley, 2006)
• Have their research and scholarship devalued and considered
illegitimate (Guzman, Trevino, Lubuguin, & Aryan, 2010)
• Causes URMs to experience the campus climate as isolating,
alienating, extremely stressful, risky and invalidating (Harlow, 2003; Stanley,
2006; Turner, Gonzalez & Wood, 2008)

Gaining Perspective
• The lack of other marginalized students, faculty, and
administrator (environmental microaggression) sends the
message that:
1) You and your kind are not welcome here
2) If you choose to come to our campus, it will be up to you to “fit
in”
3) If you choose to say, there is only so far you will advance
4) The odds are against you

Recognizing Microaggressions On
Campus
• Because we are looking for blatant expressions of discrimination
it is easy to overlook microaggressions
• The first step is to recognize the potential impact of a statement,
and how these messages may be one of the thousand little “cuts”
that an underrepresented student experiences on any given day
• It might be a microaggression if you find your self using the
following qualifier:
– "I'm not trying to be racist/sexist/cissexist/heterosexist, but...

Addressing & Eliminating
Microaggressions
• Become aware of your own unconscious bias
• Be observant – notice reactions
• Interrupt microaggressions (3-step process)
•That’s not
okay
•That’s
problematic
Name
It
•I don’t like
that
•I’m not
comfortable
with that
Claim
It
•Please don’t
use sexist
language
•Please don’t
make racist
comments
Stop
It