Microaggression and Japanese Muslim Women
Authors: KOCALAN Elif Büşra 
Published: December 2023

Microaggressions are subtle, mostly unintentional and not ill-intended but discriminatory or biased behaviours, actions or conversations that have negative impacts towards minorities, disadvantaged or marginalised groups. Even though they are not intentional or not ill-intended, due to their cumulative nature, they still can have harmful effects on those who experience them. These effects include emotional ones such as anger, stress, frustration, anxiety, self-doubt and depression as well as stress-related physiological diseases: hypertension and heart diseases. Therefore, they significantly impact the life of those who are exposed to them. Microaggressions can take three forms: microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations. They are several types of microaggressions: racial, sexist, albeit or ageist, or religious.

Japan has approximately 150.000 Muslims. A majority of them are immigrant Muslims, and only %10 of them are estimated to be native Japanese Muslims. This makes Japanese Muslims a minority among a minority. Although both immigrant and Japanese Muslims are quite contented with their lives in Japanese society, Japanese Muslim women are easily identified as Muslims in the society due to their hijab, and come across microaggressions from time to time. This work is an ethnographic study focusing on religious microaggressions that Japanese Muslim women encounter during their daily lives in Japan. The data is obtained during the researcher’s almost two and half years of studies in Japan, Tokyo. The participant observation, semi-structured interviews and field notes data are analysed thematically to discover the religious microaggression types of Japanese women experience and their responses towards them. It is also aimed to see to what extent religious microaggressions have an influence on their lives.

It is discovered that Japanese Muslim women encounter three types of microaggressions: being mistaken as a foreigner, underestimation of personal agency and offensive jokes. Due to a lack of familiarity with Japanese society about hijab-wearing Japanese Muslim women, they are frequently assumed to be foreigners and approached in English, and this is the first microaggression, being mistaken as a foreigner. The second one is when society assumes it is their Muslim husbands or boyfriends who convinced them for religious conversion and for hijab as well, thus, underestimating Japanese Muslim women’s personal agency. The last one is offensive jokes: jokes on stereotypes such as terrorism and jokes on their mental health. These three microaggressions affect Japanese Muslim women’s lives in four ways: frustration, efforts to prove themselves, leading double lives, and last but not least, detachment from the society. The first step is getting frustrated. Dealing with daily assumptions on them frustrates them. Next comes more serious steps. Some get into an effort of proving their decision to be correct: showing the society the rightness and/or the beauty of Islam. Some, rather than dealing with the society, prefer to hide their religious identity and continue their daily lives as secret Muslims. They do not wear hijab in front of their non-Muslim friends, family and acquaintances, but wear it while attending to Islamic events. They do not pray openly and they find excuses for not eating non-halal. They lead double lives. Lastly, some, perhaps the most serious impact of microaggressions, distance themselves from Japanese society. They leave their jobs. They do not socialise with non-Muslim friends. Due to microaggressions they experience, they detach themselves from the society.

Microaggression is still a new discussion topic among social scientists and the public. Due to the suspicions of its nature or harmful results, awareness-raising activities are not widespread enough. Therefore, in order to understand migroagression and its harmful results better, and to create more equal and inclusive societies, it is necessary to increase the microaggression studies.