“You Intimidate Me” as a Microaggressive Controlling Image to Discipline Womyn of Color Faculty

ABSTRACT

This essay rectifies limitations in existing microaggression literature by theorizing a particular controlling image as microaggressive. A controlling image operating within the academy is “you’re intimidating,” which carries representational meanings about Others that seeks to discipline womyn of color faculty. The intersectional nature of the controlling image is mired in power and contextual factors that reflect a racial–gendered microaggression. Explicating this argument draws on memorable messages from the author’s experiences. The force of the microaggressive controlling image rests on its expression and representation, which suggests a mutually informing and reinforcing dialectic. This essay advances understanding about controlling images, contributes to published literature on microaggressions via a communication lens simultaneously, and theorizes an intersectional microaggresssion that extends current literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Controlling image
• faculty of color
• intersectionality
• microaggression
• women of color

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Dreama Moon and Cindy Griffin, each of whom lent unwavering support for and feedback on the ideas presented herein at different junctures of this manuscript. As well, the author appreciates the editor and anonymous reviewers for their support and constructive feedback to strengthen further this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Based on the experiences of womyn of color in academe, Flores Niemann (2012a) concludes that they are “especially subject to negative consequences of attributional ambiguity” that stems from the difficulty in discerning whom to trust which negatively affects advancement (p. 489).

2. Work by the communication scholars cited are the earliest published appearances wherein the language of “microaggressions” is adopted to explore communicative interactions. This author acknowledges that a case could be made that scholarship exploring interracial (e.g., Houston, 2000; Orbe & Harris, 2015) works on a parallel plane of—and thus shares a concern with identifying and exposing—what is now recognized as microaggressions.

3. Microinsults refers to “behavioral/verbal remarks, or comments that convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity” and microinvalidations refers to “verbal comments or behaviors that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person of color” (Sue, 2010a, p. 8).

4. Throughout this essay, I adopt Chican@ and Latin@ as the preferred spelling. On this point, Calafell and Holling (2011) write,

The boundary of identity conveyed by and through “Latin@” is gender inclusivity and equity. The “@” symbol expresses an intertwining of Latina and Latino subjects … [and] “symbolize[s] alliances”—past, present and future ones—between and amongst U.S. Latin@s and Latin American Latina/os and their struggles.” (p. xvi)

5. Rivera et al. (2010) concluded that there are similarities (and differences) between racial–ethnic groups’ experiences with microaggressions. Some similarities included having one’s intellect questioned or communication styles pathologized.

6. “Academic tokenism” restricts “academic freedom and reinforces expectations based on stereotypes.” It “occurs through assumptions, whether implicit or explicit, of inherent—or unfair—connections between the immigrant women’s academic work and their foreign identities” (Lawless & Chen, 2015, p. 43).

7. The examples are discrete, yet by accumulating them, they point toward something more, namely, a controlling image that is best revealed by frontloading the examples and following with analysis.

8. I adopt Martin and Nakayama’s (2010) view of power as based on primary (e.g., race) and secondary identity dimensions (e.g., educational level), as derived from institutions and roles occupied, and as dynamic.

9. Beyond characterizing academic climates as hostile, other scholars liken it “to a ‘war-like battleground’ that precipitates psychological and physiological strains” (Smith, Yosso, and Solórzano, as cited in Cueva, 2014, p. 224).

10. Worth considering elsewhere is whether the named controlling image is parallel to and an academic manifestation of “the educated Black bitch” controlling image that circulates in films (Hill Collins, 2005, p. 145).