Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I do not usually get offended even though some attitudes or words casted to me could be microaggressions. However, I have an experience where I was not really happy. Me and my husband visited an insurance company to get a life insurance. The agent was male. Among questions he needed to ask us for the setup, there was a question about occupations. I answered a stay-at-home mother. He said “It is the hardest job,” but I felt the faking of politeness in it. I understand he was trying to be nice, but I was not happy because I felt his prejudice that all housewives need to hear compliments since they are not really compensated and being a housewife is not a career. However, I chose to become a stay-at-home mother and I was totally enjoying it thus I did not need pity or a fake compliment to make me feel better. Also from my experiences, working outside and being a stay-at-home mother are both hard work in different ways and I did not feel that being a stay-at-home mother is the hardest. This made me think he was just being polite. So if he used the word “the most compensating or the worthiest” I would have been more happy.  

This experience made me think that one of the big effects of discrimination, prejudice or stereotype in the form of microaggressions is creating another prejudice towards an ‘’opposite” or “counter” group which in my case was career-focused males. I also think that prejudice and steretotypes, especially if they are microaggressions, from others make the targeted people think people from other groups are not able to understand them and builds a wall between them.