Teena Tom Microaggressions describe comments or actions that can be discriminatory and hurtful to certain identities, regardless of the intent. If we can be aware of these, we can be more supportive and practice actual allyship for identities different than ours.
What are Microaggressions?
Microaggressions: The everyday slights, indignities, put-downs and insults that people of colour, women, LGBT populations or those who are marginalized experience in their day-to-day interactions with people.
Macroaggressions: A macroaggression is an act of racism towards everyone of a race, gender or group. An example of a macroaggression would be individuals spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and placing blame on Asia.
Why Are Microaggressions Harmful?
Microaggressions are not insulting, insensitive, or rude. These comments come from a place of discrimination based on a person’s identity. They often involve a stereotype of that identity. Microaggressions may portray the idea that a person does or does not fit into that stereotype. While microaggressions are based on many of the same ideas as racism, sexism and homophobia, the difference between micro- and macro-aggressions is the intent. A microaggression likely didn’t have malicious intent, but still is harmful. A macroaggression is overtly discriminatory and malicious toward a certain group. Some examples of microaggressions could be:
- You don’t look like you’re gay.
- Why do you sound so white?
- Your English is so good!
There are studies that show microaggressions have a negative impact on the mental health of those receiving them. A person receiving them repeatedly from a certain group or person has less trust in that person. As healthcare professionals, that is one of the worst things we can do with our patients. For them to receive quality care, it is important for them to trust their provider. It will provide a stronger therapeutic relationship and likely better therapy outcomes. So how do we remedy microaggressions we made, and avoid them in the future?
How Do You Avoid Microaggressions
- Understand and confront your biases. Read the article linked above to understand this process!
- Interact with people of different identities from you and learn of their individualized experiences.
- Be open and non-defensive to feedback about microaggressions you may make.
- Openly discuss your attitudes and biases and how they may have impacted others.
- Speak up against the bias and discrimination that you see.
- When consuming academic papers or media, identify examples of microaggressions and understand why they are microaggressions.
Reducing Microaggressions in Healthcare
There is a lot of work to be done to reduce microaggressions in healthcare and develop trust with patients of marginalized identities.
- One beneficial action is to recruit healthcare workers from underrepresented communities. Not just to “be more diverse” but to better serve your population of patients.
- Create commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Prioritize dialogue on diversity themes especially microaggressions, discrimination and bias.
- Training should incorporate skills-based strategies that can promote change for equity and inclusion. For example, raise awareness of more inclusive terms. If you hear a person say transsexual, say a more inclusive term is transgender or transitioning male to female or female to male.
- Respond to a microaggression you hear with a question or reflection to promote understanding of their comment (e.g. Can you explain what you mean by that? What makes you think that?) Reframe their statement to be more inclusive and explain the impact of the original comment.
- There may be microaggressions from a patient to a healthcare provider. in this instance, set expectations for how to respond to this situation as the person receiving a microaggression. The person should feel the right to walk away if it’s safe and know how to document the situation confidentially. In this situation, it’s good to debrief with the team so they will all have an understanding of the impact of the comment. As a result, it’s also important to assess options to transition care to another provider or have a discussion with the patient.
These are some strategies we can use to reduce microaggressions as an SLP.
Sources:
What exactly is a microaggression? – Vox
Defining Racial Justice Terms: Microaggression vs Macroaggression (ywcacentralcarolinas.org)