Page 204 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

178 gender microaggressions and sexism

• Men not only excluded female coworkers, but heightened cultural
boundaries by emphasizing camaraderie with men while accentuating
differences with women. This is most symbolized by the “ old boy ’ s
network ” and networking among men only, while excluding women.
• Women stated they had few mentors, were not effectively mentored
when compared to men, and that male mentors often mistook their inter-
actions as a sexual invitation.
• Women often described a hostile and invalidating work climate. Over
60% of women reported harassment at the workplace in the form of
sexual innuendos, sexist jokes, unwanted sexual attention, and/or gender
stereotypes.

Impact on Physical Health

The quality of life is oftentimes measured with respect to physical and mental
health. The fact that women live longer than men and seem to have greater
resilience to illnesses may be biologically determined, just as physical strength
and speed are attributes of men. Little doubt exists, however, that there are
gender differences in physical well - being, and illnesses as well. How much of

these differences are related to sexism is difficult to determine. We often think
about cardiovascular disease as a male problem, but it is the number - one
cause of death among women (Misra, 2001). Deaths from lung and breast cancers
for women are increasing, while general deaths for lung cancer for men have

declined. Although it would be difficult to attribute the stress of sexism to
increased cancer deaths (it appears that increased lung cancer is affected by
increased cigarette smoking among women), some have observed that fund-
ing research in the areas of heart disease and cancer have been primarily con-
ducted on men. Physicians also seem not to entertain these diseases in the
forefront of diagnosis and treatment when they see female patients.
In Chapter 5 we described the relationship of microaggressive stress and
its physiological and psychological correlates. It would not be far - fetched to
entertain the notion that gender microaggressions represent stress to women.
If it does, it would follow the same process of heightened physiological arousal,
constant vigilance, and a mobilization of physical and psychological resources to
deal with microaggressions. Coronary heart disease, hypertension, headaches,
and even asthma are shown to be connected to stress, which decreases immuno-
logical functioning (D. Sue, Sue, & Sue, 2010). Women are more likely to suffer
from migraine and tension headaches, and asthma (Hamelsky & Lipton, 2006;

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