Port of Seattle fights microaggression in pursuing gender equity and inclusion

The Port of Seattle is confronting a perhaps less glaring but still quite pervasive problem in its relentless mission to foster workplace gender equality and inclusion: microaggression.

The term, coined by Harvard University psychiatrist Chester Pierce in 1970, refers to brief and frequent indignities that convey hostile or negative attitudes toward marginalized groups.

"I see all the time in meetings where women are interrupted and people speak over them,"
Bookda Gheisar, senior director of the port's office of equity, diversion and inclusion, told TradeWinds.