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The Harm We Don’t See: When Incivility Gets Named and Microaggressions Get Ignored

Veterinary medicine is increasingly interested in incivility. We have workshops on respectful communication, conflict resolution and professional courtesy. We talk about tone and kindness, and the way we speak to each other.

These are worthy conversations. Incivility harms teams. It erodes trust, increases burnout, reduces collaboration and makes clinical work harder than it needs to be. A single dismissive comment at a stressful moment can ripple far beyond that day.

However, here lies the risk. If we treat all harm as incivility, we flatten an entirely different category of workplace injury. We erase the lived experience of people who are not harmed by tone alone, but by the way that tone intersects with identity. This is where microaggressions live.

Veterinary medicine gravitates toward incivility because it feels universal. Everyone can recognise it. Microaggressions are not universal, which makes them easier to overlook.

Incivility is interpersonal. Microaggressions are structural.

Incivility is the tree top. Microaggressions are the root system we have yet to dig into.

I’ve been on the receiving end of both - as have many colleagues. But many in the profession will only know incivility, and will never see microaggressions. Because of this, they underestimate how dangerously corrosive they can be.

If veterinary leaders cannot tell the difference, we will keep polishing the surface while exclusion grows quietly underneath.

Incivility and Microaggressions are Not the Same Injury

Veterinary workplaces often group both behaviours under one banner. An eye roll, a cold shoulder, a sarcastic remark and a pattern of subtle digs at a colleague with ADHD may all be treated as similar expressions of unprofessionalism. Yet their impact is not the same.

Incivility violates social norms of respect. Anyone can be a recipient. Anyone can be a perpetrator on a bad day or under pressure.

Microaggressions are different. They are identity linked. They arrive in small doses that accumulate into something heavier. They come dressed as jokes or helpful questions or accidental assumptions. They often sound like nothing at all to the person who delivers them.

Examples veterinary teams know too well:

• Telling a female surgeon she is very articulate

• Asking a neurodivergent colleague if they have tried being more organised

• Assuming the vet nurse is the receptionist

• Questioning whether chronic illness just means low resilience

• Commenting that someone does not look disabled

Each comment on it’s own may seem minor. Together they form a map of where power lies. A pattern of microaggressions teaches someone exactly how welcome they are and how much of themselves they must hide in order to stay.

The difference is not in volume. The difference is in meaning.

A rude email is incivility. A rude email that questions whether your hearing loss affects your competence is a microaggression.

One hurts your feelings. The other destabilises your legitimacy.

Microaggressions ask people to prove they deserve to be here. They force disclosure decisions, and add cognitive load. They make routine work more effortful. You can recover from an uncivil moment with time and perspective. It is harder to recover when the message is that you are an exception, an inconvenience or an outsider.

We Know how to Fix Brusqueness

We do not know how to fix bias-shaped harm.

A vet snaps at a nurse preparing for a GA. They are tired and stressed. Someone intervenes . Everyone agrees it crossed a line.

Now another scenario. Back to the colleague with ADHD - a new graduate. One week they are told to work on time management. They accept that. The next week, someone tells them it must be hard to keep track of things. The week after that, a colleague jokes about how scatterbrained they are. Another asks if they are taking anything for it. Someone else tells clients they are very bright but easily distracted.

No one intervenes. No one even notices. The tone was not unkind. The harm was cumulative rather than immediate. It was identity relevant, not just behaviour relevant.

The graduate starts triple checking every case. Stays later. Masks harder. They stop asking for help. They wonder if hiring them was a mistake. They are not burnt out by incivility. They are burnt out by implication.

Kindness can Coexist with Exclusion

This is the part that people struggle with.

They imagine harm must be hostile. They imagine bias must be cruel. Yet many microaggressions come packaged inside kindness.

A nurse with chronic pain gets told how inspirational she is for pushing through. A trans colleague is congratulated on how well they are passing. A vet with an accent is praised for how clearly they speak for someone from overseas. A neurodivergent colleague is told they are amazing for being so capable despite it.

No one intends insult. But intent does not determine impact. These comments reinforce who is considered default and who is considered deviation.

One is about how you said something, the other is about who you are allowed to be.

None of these moments reach a policy threshold. None are filed as complaints. None trigger emails from management. Yet each one bends identity just a little.

Incivility is a sting that fades. Microaggressions are water dripping on the same spot until the stone thins.

Incivility teaches you to avoid a person. Microaggressions teach you to doubt your place.

Incivility disrupts relationships. Microaggressions shape identity, career trajectory and retention. When they finally leave the clinic two years later, the exit story is burnout. The unspoken story is identity based attrition.

Why We Rarely Talk about Microaggressions

We rarely touch the deeper layer. The subtler comments about race, gender, sexuality, disability or neurotype. The quiet signals that someone does not belong. The repeated questions, jokes and assumptions that slowly strip away safety and legitimacy.

Microaggressions seldom appear in our incivility narrative for three reasons:

1. Incivility feels fixable. Microaggressions require change.

Incivility asks us to be nicer. Microaggressions ask us to examine bias, power, hiring, culture, leadership and policy.

2. Incivility is neutral. Microaggressions are not.

Anyone can be uncivil. Not everyone can deliver a microaggression. They flow along social hierarchies, which makes them uncomfortable to name.

3. Incivility centres intent. Microaggressions centre impact.

Incivility has a script for repair, which focusses on tone, intention and politeness. Microaggressions ask people to take responsibility for harm they never intended. That is confronting.

So we talk about civility instead. Because it allows us to feel like we are improving without disturbing the foundations of how we work. Incivility is only one form of harm. And it is the most convenient one to name.

Why do We Hesitate to Address Them?

Because microaggressions cannot be solved with politeness.

They require cultural literacy. They require acknowledgement of systemic advantage. They require those not harmed to recognise harm they have never felt. Incivility asks for behaviour change. Microaggressions ask for worldview reconstruction, because microaggressions have no neutral ground.

Incivility affects people evenly. Microaggressions do not. They disproportionately land on clinicians with disability, neurodivergence, minority gender identity, cultural background and those without social capital. Naming them forces the profession to confront unevenness, not just unpleasantness.

Microaggressions also reveal the invisible architecture of belonging. They expose who must stretch to fit. Who must mask to be accepted. Who gets queried, corrected or presumed incompetent more often. This is harder to digest than tone management. It questions identity rather than behaviour.

The Harm is not Equivalent

Some argue theses harms are similar because both create stress and reduce morale. Lived experience says otherwise.

Incivility may sting, but it usually ends. Microaggressions persist.

Incivility asks you to endure a moment. Microaggressions ask you to endure a worldview.

Incivility harms by roughness. Microaggressions harm by repetition.

Incivility disrupts working relationships. Microaggressions destabilise self concept.

Incivility says your behaviour was flawed. Microaggressions say your identity is the flaw.

A brusque nurse on a stressful shift may cut sharp for a moment. A pattern of comments about how your stutter makes client communication difficult reshapes the entire landscape of your career. One is an unpleasant interaction. The other is a slow erosion of professional legitimacy

What this Reveals about Veterinary Culture

The fact that veterinary medicine can speak endlessly about incivility but rarely about microaggressions should not be seen as coincidence.

It suggests that we are more comfortable regulating tone than examining power. It suggests that we prefer harmony to honesty. It suggests that inclusion work is still framed as behaviour rather than structure.

When a profession spends years training civility but barely mentions microaggressions, it tells us who the conversation is designed to protect. It tells us that we want workplaces to feel pleasant before we want them to be fair. It tells us that we prioritise surface safety over structural safety.

Most of all, it tells us that harm is recognised only when everyone could experience it. The harm that affects some more than others remains softer, more negotiable, easier to sidestep.

We regulate emotion before we regulate power. We protect harmony before we protect belonging. We repair tone before we repair structure.

The preference for discussing incivility while ignoring microaggressions also suggests that we prefer interventions that do not demand redistribution of power. It suggests we prioritise courtesy over equity. It suggests we value comfort more than belonging.

We have built a culture where everyone agrees tone matters, but where only some understand what it feels like to have identity itself questioned through normalised behaviour.

So Which Matters More?

Both matter, but they do not wound the same way. Incivility hurts your day. Microaggressions shape your sense of self at work.

Incivility can often be repaired with an apology. Microaggressions rarely receive that acknowledgement. The person harmed is asked to accept good intent, to swallow the cost so no one else feels uncomfortable.

In that sense, microaggressions carry a particular cruelty. They isolate. The target can see the pattern. The people around them often cannot.

Over time, this shifts a person’s understanding of reality: “Am I overreacting?” “Is this really about me?” “Maybe I am the problem?” “Maybe I am not cut out for this profession?”

Clinicians do not leave because of one rude email. They leave because condescension quietly replaced respect. They leave because their body or brain was framed as a risk. They leave because their identity became a constant negotiation.

Why Leaders Need Both Words

A profession that wants true psychological safety needs both tools.

We need frameworks for respectful dialogue. We need insight into patterned bias. We need to recognise when tone is not the real problem. We need to ask who carries the cost of being gracious.

Without this clarity, we risk punishing the person who finally speaks up about bias because their voice sounds frustrated. We hold them to the politeness standard, while the steady hum of identity based harm goes unchallenged.

When leaders cannot tell the difference, they end up rewarding silence. They encourage politeness while staff quietly withdraw. They resolve conflict yet miss exclusion.

What Leaders Can Do Differently

If veterinary leadership wants truly safe workplaces, not simply polite ones, the discourse must expand.

Leaders can start here:

• Notice which harms trigger action. Raised voices, or repeated jokes about identity.

• Track who receives what kind of feedback, and how often identity is mentioned.

• Listen for humour that only travels in one direction.

• Ask why some people are described as difficult when they name patterns.

• Treat “I did not mean it like that” as the start of responsibility, not the end.

• Redesign systems so that adjustments are standard, not favours.

• Prioritise curiosity over defensiveness.

Safety is not built by asking everyone to be nicer. Safety is built when systems no longer rely on the most marginalised people swallowing the cost of everyone else’s comfort.

What Would It Look Like If We Treated Microaggressions As Seriously As Incivility?

Imagine stepping in when someone jokes about a vet with autism being blunt with the same urgency used when voices are raised.

Imagine a nurse mistaken for the receptionist is not told to laugh it off, but rosters, signage and introductions are redesigned so the assumption disappears.

Imagine asking anxious graduates what they need to thrive, not praising them for coping.

Imagine leaders responding to patterned bias with policy change, not platitudes to be neutral and polite.

The Work Ahead

Three questions can guide veterinary teams when something feels off.

• Would this comment matter if directed at someone outside this group.

• Does this happen repeatedly to people with similar identities.

• Does the person harmed need to work harder to be seen as legitimate.

If the answer is yes, you are no longer dealing with incivility alone. You are looking at culture signals. These require more than courtesy. They require design. They require leaders willing to address power, not just tone management.

If veterinary leaders address microaggressions as general incivility, the deeper harm will continue unchecked. We will celebrate politeness while people still shrink themselves to survive. Civility campaigns do not fix equity. They make it quieter.

The future of veterinary work requires two conversations. One about tone. One about power.

We can solve the first with courtesy. We can only solve the second with structural change.