Smiling is often considered a projection of one’s happiness, so why is it that men still demand that women smile for them? Women are constantly told how to present themselves to men. The entitlement men feel when it comes to how women control their facial muscles is still an issue that no woman is smiling about.
As someone who doesn’t radiate the typical feminine appeal, I’ve been told to smile and “cheer up” by strangers many times. I’ll admit it, my natural resting face isn’t exactly cheery. To most, I appear as if there is a silent rage boiling inside of me set to overflow at any moment. In reality, it’s not that complicated. Like many men and women, in moments of concentration, I tend to look angry.
Last week at a business conference, a man once again felt the need to tell me to smile. The lead conference speaker continued to glare at me speech after speech. During the conference, I focused on the speakers in an effort to learn and didn’t consciously keep my face frozen in a permanent grin. Something about my face disrupted the middle-aged businessman to the point where he spent a half hour staring in contempt.
While a student spoke, he walked across the room and pinched my arm. Bending down close enough to my face that I could smell what he had for lunch, he told me threateningly, “You need to smile more. Look like you’re at least enjoying being here.” After releasing his hand, he gave me a creepy smile. It was a smile I’m all too familiar with, having seen it time after time when men on the street request that I smile for them, or they’ll give me something to smile about.
In this scenario, I’d been doing nothing wrong; merely existing and projecting a naturally unattractive facial expression. It is impossible to look happy all the time. I don’t know a single person who looks manically happy while listening to a physics lecture or walking to class. Why are women held to a different standard in this regard? When a man demands that a woman smile, this request doesn’t come from a place of genuine concern or desire for another human being’s happiness. Sometimes, a man asks a woman to smile because he wants it to happen for himself. It’s an excellent, yet subtle, power dynamic.
If a woman wants to smile for you, she’ll smile for you. Don’t ask. Never have I once told another man or woman to smile. I have zero interest in telling others how to look for me. Why? Because the construction of their facial muscles isn’t any of my business.
If you want women to smile, be polite and friendly. If there is one thing that makes me smile, it’s receiving random compliments from strangers on the street. There’s nothing sweeter than someone stopping to tell me how nice my hair looks out of genuine goodness. This is what makes me smile, not the guy in cargo shorts screaming at me from across the road to slap a smile on.