Have you ever had the feeling that you weren’t welcome somewhere, but you couldn’t quite figure out why? Or maybe you felt that, somehow, you were the butt of an unspoken joke? Perhaps it could have been a casual comment that stung in a way that made you feel small, invisible, or too “much”?

In these fast and furious technological times, our minds are constantly distracted.  We live in our heads, even as we deal with daily life, being social, using that essential medium -  language - to communicate with others and to feel connected, whatever that might mean. But this language that we use is not innocent. Words are imbued with values emanating from cultures.

A language evolves, changes and adapts to socially-accepted word meanings, grammatical rules, accents, and other manners of speaking. What is acceptable or unacceptable reflects common usage. For example, research on linguistic sexism has shown that a man-made language such as English is imbued with words that have sexist connotations, and grammatical rules that reflect historical male dominance in society. Its uncritical usage routinely by all genders in daily life has in turn naturalized male dominance and associated sexist inequalities (Spender, 1998). Similar other examples are racist (Reisigl & Wodak, 2005) and ageist (Ryan et al., 1995) language styles. The same may be said of Maltese (Farrugia, 2020), and many other languages.

A charismatic wielder of language may, by the sheer force of oratory, buoy up people’s hopes, convert their hearts from hatred to forgiveness, or embolden them to rise up against injustice. One may recall Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”, for example.  

In general, people may know about the meaning of empathy and respect. These ‘social skills’ are taught in schools, specifically via the subject of PSCD, a subject that is not considered ‘core’, and for which there is no formal exam in our system that holds high performance in examinations as the marker for ‘achievement’ and ‘success’. Empathy and interpersonal skills may be intangible, but they play a vital role in ensuring that we thrive in all aspects of our life. At the workplace, even the most qualified employees will need soft skills to become effective professionals. Indeed, hard skills may get you inside, but soft skills will help you succeed.

One might wonder what ‘success’ we could speak of as humans, if we do not have the requisite knowledge and sensitivity to respect ourselves, all others and all of creation. One might do well to wonder what our idea of ‘success’ or ‘worthiness’ says about us.  Also, it is of the essence to reflect on whose idea of worthy aspirations prevails in society and the world, and how this comes about.

‘Microaggression’ is a phenomenon that manifests itself insidiously on a daily basis as a result of  a lack of thoughtfulness and disregard for human rights.  Microagressions are commonplace verbal, behavioral or environmental slights that may or may not be intentional, and convey rudeness or insensitivity to those on the receiving end (Sue et al. 2007). Examples of microaggressions include statements like:

Where are you really from?

What are you?

You don’t act/dress/speak like a normal person/one of us.

You’re really pretty for a large girl.

What brand are your clothes?

Microaggressions can be based on any aspect of a marginalized person’s identity (for example, sexuality, religion, or social class). Social class microaggressions can be verbal, behavioural and environmental. They can be seen in the use of politically correct descriptors like “at risk” or “urban.” They exist in behavior form, such as when a professor suggests to a student to quit her job so she can concentrate more on her studies, assuming that she has a financial safety net to cover tuition and housing, or when a group selects an expensive restaurant for an outing without considering that the cost will be prohibitive for some members.

Research has found that different groups of people experience different frequencies and types of microaggressions (Nadal et al., 2014; Sue, 2010), and that having fewer experiences with discrimination as a result of privilege makes it harder for privileged individuals to recognise acts as discriminatory. Similarly, men may be less apt at recognizing subtle forms of gender discrimination because they experience gender discrimination less frequently, or maybe differently.  Individual microaggressions may not be devastating to the person experiencing them; however, their cumulative effects over time can be large. The Tumblr blog ‘Microaggressions’, which aims to “mak[e] visible the ways in which social difference is produced and policed in everyday lives,” describes this as follows:

 “Often, [microaggressions] are never meant to hurt – acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult. Social others are microaggressed hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.”

Despite our existence in a post-racial era, racism, prejudice, and discrimination persist and harm individuals holding minoritised racial and ethnic identities. Similarly, those holding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) identities continue to experience interpersonal and systemic heterosexism, even though the sociopolitical climate has moved in a more inclusive direction.

Because schools are part of the fabric of mainstream culture, student experiences in school would reflect the experiences that individuals have in society at large. In fact, research suggests that adolescents holding minoritized racial and ethnic identities and those of LGBTQ status experience the school climate as unwelcoming when compared to their white and straight counterparts (Ellis et al. 2019; Woodford et al. 2017). We also know that the social categories individuals belong to do not exist in isolation of one another.

Being the target of microaggressive behaviors has been associated with a series of negative mental health outcomes, such as lower self-esteem, and depression (Nadal, Griffin et al., 2014; Nadal, Wong et al., 2014). Being the target of gender micro-aggressions (everyday sexism) has been associated with lower comfort, increased feelings of depression and anger, anxiety, stress, school avoidance, alcohol use, and lower self-esteem (Gartner, 2019; Nadal, 2010; Nadal & Haynes, 2012).

Research reveals that all of us, irrespective of gender, can be both perpetrators and targets of racial, gender, and sexual-orientation micro-aggressions. Any time we do not treat people as human beings worthy of dignity and worthy of being seen and understood, we are failing to be truly inclusive. Haste is a form of violence. When we move too fast, we lose touch with the humanity inherent in others, and we end up saying things from places of bias instead of places of kindness.

Innocent (or thoughtless) as our actions and words may be, we have to understand that the impact of our actions always outweighs our intentions.  It is vital to the wellbeing and health of our families, communities, and of any group, team or organization that we become aware of the prejudices we unwittingly carry in our language. This awareness lies at the heart of all endeavours at making our society more inclusive and more respectful of fundamental human rights.

Words are never ‘just words’.

Audrey Friggieri is the Commissioner of the Commission on Domestic Violence and Gender-based Violence.