Please stop acting like sexist jerks.
Now, before you protest that telling women to smile isn’t sexist, stop and think back to the last time you saw a man you’d never met and said any of the following to him:
- Why so down? Smile!
- Life’s too short! Smile while you can!
- You need to smile more. ((How long have you been monitoring my facial expressions? Can I see the data on how much time I spend making each facial expression?))
- You’d be hotter if you were smiling.
- A handsome guy like you shouldn’t look so sad.
In the rest of this little note, I will (probably fairly) assume that you actually never say these things to men you’ve never met. If you say it to other men, though, many of the following points are still pretty valid. Sexist or not, you are acting like a rude jerk. If you are sexist about it, it’s that much more odious. ((And yes, this post is heterosexist, but never has a woman I don’t know insulted me because I didn’t make the facial expression she would like me to.))
Now, before you protest that you are not being rude—that you are being friendly, that you are having a positive outlook, that you are trying to increase joy in the world, that you are trying to help because you’ll never see the good things if you are dwelling on the bad things, and after all, science has proven that smiling makes you feel better even if you don’t feel like smiling—consider this:
A real smile is a spontaneous physical expression of an emotion. Granted, there are some people who try to avoid expressing even the “good” emotions, but most people are pretty comfortable with spontaneous displays of happiness, joy, gratitude, and so on. Further, studies have also shown that inflicting “positive thinking”
When you tell someone who is not smiling that they should be smiling, you are essentially saying one (or more) of the following:
- You should be having different emotions than you are having
- You should feign an emotion you are not having
- You should do something with your body because I think you should
- My desire to see you smiling is more important than whatever you might be feeling or thinking
Are any of those statements very kind or helpful when they stated plainly? No. If you wouldn’t say those to a random woman you see on the sidewalk, you shouldn’t tell her to smile.
You do not know what has happened in the life of a random woman you see on the sidewalk, in the grocery, in her car with the window rolled down, at the gym, or anywhere. What if it would actually be kind of psychotic for her to smile, given what she is experiencing?
Further questions for you:
- Why is it so important that women smile when you look at them?
- Do you harbor an unexamined (or examined) belief that women are on the sidewalk for your visual or emotional gratification?
- Is your desire to see a pretty woman look prettier, or to not have your high spirits brought down by someone who doesn’t look happy really more important than whatever is going on with that random woman?
- Do these desires entitle you to tell other people what they should feel (or look like they are feeling)?
- Are your own emotions so out of your control that you need the people around you to all look happy so you don’t feel sad?
- Is your self esteem so low that you need random women to smile at you on command so you can feel good about your self?
Clearly, whatever it is, it’s important enough to all of you that you feel the need to interrupt a total stranger’s thoughts, conversation, or zone. For some of you, however, the stakes seem extra high.
It was important enough to the guys in the car beside me today that, when I rolled up my window instead of smiling at them, they called me a cunt and made dog and ape noises out their windows. Really guys? It’s worth all that? My anger with you is tinged with compassion because… that’s sad.
This is also sad: it’s shocking if whatever random man (often men) commanding me to change my facial expression for him does NOT insult me when I do not do his bidding. I’m a cunt, a bitch, a whore if I don’t smile for you.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I will point out, however, that I’m only a whore if you give me money for moving my mouth and feigning pleasure for you. You never offer, though. I guess that would draw the outlines of this whole little picture a bit too starkly, wouldn’t it? Make it a little explicit?
Let me trace this shape one more time for good measure. Did you know that smiling at dominant people is a submissive gesture? What, really are you wanting a non-smiling woman to do for you?
Guys, I’m sure you have some positive qualities, but you really aren’t putting them on display this way. I know it sucks to be expected to act confident and strong all the time, especially in the face of a gorgeous woman who very likely may not want to give you her contact info, dance with you, go out for coffee with you, sleep with you, or stand in the same vicinity as you after you propose any of these things. One of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done was ask a girl to watch a movie with me when she was so beautiful that I found it hard to speak in her presence. You do not get the credit you deserve for usually being the ones to put yourself out there for rejection. You are expected to repeatedly step up for another round of embarrassment, awkwardness, disappointment, and rejection. I really do get that it can piss you off after a while, and the mythic images of Sirens, Gorgons, succubi, vagina dentata and so on start to make a whole lot of sense. And then women get to complain about how men have all the power.
I really do see why you’d be pissed off. There are many different kinds of power. But you’d really be doing yourself a favor by expressing your anger in some other way. Calling women nasty names because they didn’t smile at you just makes you look like you have no self esteem, no self control, and no good sense.
If I thought this was more about flirting than it was about you asserting dominance and demanding gratification, I’d advise you to find the ways in which you get women to smile at you without telling them to. Because if you have to tell her to smile at you, it’s going nowhere.
Instead, I’ll advise you to take a moment to consider the following:
- What kind of man you are
- What kind of man you aspire to be
- How your actions serve that aspiration
- What you know, and what you don’t know
Am I (or any other woman) really a bitch, a cunt, a slut, or even just baseline stuck-up if:
- My doctor just called me and said I need to come in to discuss the results and I don’t smile at you when you tell me to?
- Someone just broke up with me and I don’t smile at you when you request it?
- You tell me to smile but I don’t while I’m commuting to work, and the check engine light in my car just came on, and I don’t have enough money to buy groceries, let alone car repairs?
- I’m trying to get home before the brunt of the migraine sets in, and I’m hoping I don’t vomit on the sidewalk, but I don’t find your request that I smile charming enough to smile?
- I feel god-damned lucky to have gotten this far without being raped, molested, or otherwise sexually assaulted because most of the women I know have been, and you are a clump of men I do not know, commanding me to exhibit a sign of submission?
- I’m trying to breathe through a rising panic attack because my PTSD is triggered by a helicopter hovering above the town, and you yelling at me that life is short does not particularly make me feel like smiling.
- My emotional damage largely stems from my mother and/or father punishing me/criticizing me/taunting me/etc. for displaying signs of and expressing emotions they did not think I should have, while failing to seem to have the emotions they thought I should have, and my response to your statement that I should feign happiness—shockingly—does not produce a smile?
- OR… My dog died. My child is sick. My parent had a stroke. Parts of my uterus are ripping themselves away from the rest of my body and it effing hurts. I really have to pee. My boss just announced there will be layoffs. I am clinically depressed. I am on my way to grief counseling. I am exhausted. My eye condition isn’t healing and I’m afraid I might go blind. I’m afraid I’m pregnant and I don’t want to be. I had a miscarriage two weeks ago and I just walked past a mother with a new baby. I’m silently running through the serious talk I’m giving when I reach my destination. Some random guy just called me a fucking stuck up cunt because I didn’t smile at him or respond when he asked what my fucking problem was. Or a million bajillion other totally valid reasons for not having a smile on my face when I happen to randomly be in your vicinity?
Good luck finding it within yourselves to act in a manner that you can respect when you reach one of those points at which you can’t distract yourself from facing yourself any more.
