In my research on women in engineering at the undergraduate level, I came across the term "microdiscrimination." Coined by Sallie Chisholm, it means, “…the subtle, mostly nondeliberate biases and marginalizations that ultimately added up to serious assaults on women’s careers” (read more on the topic in A.S. Bix's book Girls Coming to Tech!where I first read the term). Big word, but simple meaning, right? And I don't think it just applies to careers. Microdiscrimination is anything in daily life that points out difference and often inferiority in a commonly marginalized group. These biases are not always on purpose and often enough left undetected. But you can find them in everyday life.
My experiences with microdiscrimination have most commonly been about my gender. They're never an outright, "You're a girl and you can't do that." These microdiscriminations are more subtly insidious. "You shouldn't be lifting that, you can't handle it." "That top is awfully low cut, what will people think?" They don't always confront or even mention gender, but I still know that the reason they're pointing something out is for the purpose of reminding me of my gender.
I recently had what could have been an ugly argument with a friend of mine about a topic riddled with microdiscrimination. This one specifically brought up gender. We were driving back from somewhere with him in the driver's seat. We came across the topic of directions. He told me that in his experience, men are better at navigating than women. The men in his life just knew how to get around via landmarks and reversing the way they came while the women he had taken trips with happened to miss turns or get lost. The first thought I had was, "Why would he bring this up with me, the ultra-feminist he knows me to be?" But the second thought I had was, "Now I feel inferior because I'm a woman who gets lost sometimes, further proving his theory."
There were a couple ways I could have handled this conversation. My instinct was to start yelling about gender stereotypes and accuse him of being sexist. I was ready to get really mean. But Brenee Brown taught me how to be vulnerable and I recognized that I was feeling angry and insecure. My petty side also didn't want to be the screaming femi-Nazi everyone expected my type to be. There was a different way to express my anger without making him feel like crap. In fact, his bias was probably not something he recognized as discrimination, rather observations made over many years exposed to our sick and unkind culture. This is what I chose to do.
First, I told him I was angry and needed to cool down. We were driving so I stared out the window and took deep breaths.
Second, I asked him where his point of view came from and brought up some different points of view. Has every woman he ever met been bad with directions? Has he ever thought about different ways people navigate that are different than how he and other men in his life navigate? Perhaps due to negative stereotypes about women's spacial reasoning skills, the women in his life developed different ways of navigating that worked for them but not for him. And of course, has his own upbringing brought him to this conclusion? Maybe his father yelled at his mother for making the wrong turn and he internalized that.
Finally, I addressed my own point of view. While I can still say that I don't believe that men are better navigators, was I grinding my heels in just because he made it about gender? Was my pride worth this argument? Were we able to learn from each other only through conflict or was there another way?
What ended up happening was he heard me out and we did both learn a lot. He thought about navigating in a different way and saw how his own internal biases influenced his perspective. I spoke my own point of view without backing down but without hurting a friend in the process. We both felt heard and talked about social issues in a constructive manner. And guess what? You can talk about microdiscimination is a constructive way too.
I know it's not always as simple as my example. There are some issues bigger than gendered navigating that take a lot of pain and struggle to fix. I do think that protests such as the Black Lives Matter movement and One Billion Rising have a right to be angry and speak angrily because they were created in the midst of mass violence against their communities (POC and women globally, though their issues often intersect). They're on a different level of protest and I respect their passion.
I'm talking about daily microdiscrimination that ultimately good people execute because they often don't know better. If you catch friends, family, coworkers or peers laying out microdiscrimination, you can address the issue at hand without wanting to rip out each other's throats. It's not easy in this case either. But I try driving down a two-way street when discussing gender inequality (or any inequality) with the people I know. So before you start yelling, try using these steps.
1. Breathe. Figure out what you're mad about.
2. Express yourself honestly and vulnerably. There is a problem you have and it's worth addressing.
3. Consider your own bias. Are there points on your side that can't be solved with this conversation? Is everything you're mad about this person's fault or is it bigger than them?
However, this is a movement for equality involving all races, genders, sexualities, economic classes, and nationalities. If after all that mature conversation still doesn't change their microdiscriminating behavior, then you have my permission to yell. No haters are allowed in our constructive and equal conversation.