It’s crazy how many microaggressions women have to deal with on a daily basis. It’s even crazier that I didn’t realize how many until my boyfriend started not only pointing them out but sticking up for me. I’m a non-confrontational person by nature unless you seriously wrong me. If I feel wronged, then I am going to speak up about it. I’m also the kind of person who is rarely offended. I think that has something to do with not taking things personally. I’m always super hard on myself so when other people say something that would rile the average person, I don’t take it to heart. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I’ve been conditioned to ignore microaggressions.
My boyfriend was signing me into his library. Usually the security person uses the picture on my license, but this woman wanted to take a new picture. I smiled for the picture as one does and a man who had been talking to the security guard says, “come on, you can smile prettier than that.” Immediately my boyfriend told him to cut it out. My initial response was to be mad at him for saying something. I told him some battles aren’t worth fighting. Can you believe that? I was upset that he defended my honor and I even wanted to apologize to the people who had to witness him stand up for me. How’s that for being conditioned? I should have thanked him, but I did not. I should have spoken up for myself and yet I did not feel comfortable doing so. My smile is a huge source of insecurity. When I was younger my sisters and I took a picture at the mall to give to my mom. The photographer told my sisters that they better tickle me because I smiled like Frankenstein. First of all, all children have difficulty smiling on cue. Second of all, I was young but old enough to recognize what she was saying. Not cool. Now anytime someone tells me I have a nice smile I take it as a big fuck you to that photographer. The thing about this instance was that I smiled my regular smile. So how dare this man take it upon himself to tell me that I could do better. What I was doing was not pleasing to him and for that I should adjust. No, I will not.
Another instance is when we went to a deli to get breakfast in my hometown. As we waited to pay for the sandwiches one of the men that worked there looked at me and said “He gave you the morning off from cooking? That’s nice of him.” I just chuckled instead of acknowledging that outdated view. My boyfriend said “we all cook for ourselves so we all had the morning off. That’s why we have you to cook for us.” Again, he stuck up for me and again I wasn’t happy about it. And yet again I wanted to apologize for it. Someone basically tells me my job is to cook for my partner and I wanted to apologize for someone putting them in their place. Looking back, I’m quite flabbergasted at my thought process. As far as we have come in society, there are still people who want to force gender roles on others. Just because I am a woman does not mean I am responsible for all of the cooking. Whether it is a five-course meal or some microwaved soup, men are capable of making a meal or two. I don’t appreciate being told that cooking is essentially all I’m good for.
Now that I realize how many microaggressions I’ve been ignoring, I’m going to start standing up for myself. I appreciate that someone has been willing to stand up for me when I was not aware enough to do it for myself. We shouldn’t have to ignore the little comments people make because when we do, it signals that they can keep making them. I’m not exactly proud that it took someone else advocating for me to realize this, but better late than never. This ends now.