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Fourth, when the vice president is asked how candidates will be evaluated for the position, he responds by saying that the “most qualified person would be offered the job,” that everyone is treated the same, that he did not see gender differences, that all have an equal chance to be hired, and that “people are people.” Interestingly enough, from that interaction alone, Kathleen concluded she would not be offered the job. While it is entirely possible that it was an erroneous conclusion, we should inquire as to how Kathleen arrived at such a belief. As we discuss in ssss1, the vice president's response reflects a worldview regarding the place of women in our society. Many women who hear the phrase “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” in the context of a job interview recognize this as a gender microaggression that communicates “women are not as qualified as men, so when a male candidate is selected, it has nothing to do with bias but concerns his qualifications.” Implicit in the interviewer's statements is the notion that he is incapable of gender prejudice because he is gender‐blind. People of color report a similar phenomenon regarding experiences with racial color‐blindness. The vice president is unaware that denial of gender differences is a microaggression that ignores the experiential reality of women and allows men to deny their own privileged positions.

Heterosexism, like racism and sexism, can operate in overt and subtle ways (Nadal, Whitman, et al., 2016). Early conceptualizations of homophobia referred to fear of and aversion to gay individuals. Noting limitations of the term, Herek (1990, 2000, 2004) proposed a more nuanced terminology to better capture individual, institutional, and cultural forms of oppression directed at lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. He coined “sexual prejudice” broadly, as negative attitudes and hostility toward sexual minorities. He further defined “sexual stigma” as referring to society's negative stance toward anything not heterosexual and “heterosexism” as the ideological system that justifies denigrating sexual minority identity, behavior, and communities. Subsequently, researchers have differentiated old‐fashioned and modern forms of heterosexism (Cowan, Heiple, Marquez, Katchadourian, & McNevin, 2005; Eldridge & Johnson, 2011; Morrison & Morrison, 2003). “Old‐fashioned heterosexism” refers to overt expressions of antigay and antilesbian attitudes and behaviors, taking form in hate speech and hate crimes, for example. Similar to modern racism and sexism, and germane to our discussion of microaggressions, “modern heterosexism” refers to subtle expressions of bias toward sexual minorities.