Just about everyone looks better when they smile. It’s true regardless of gender. I don’t see where sexism enters the equation.
I feel pretty oblivious. What am I missing?
Because men are “allowed” to look however they want, grouchy, happy or ‘keep the fuck away from me’. If a women does it she’s got “resting bitch face” or gets told to smile. It’s just a subtle way of saying “you don’t look right here let me change you”. If you kept saying it to guys they’d tell you to fuck off.
“you don’t look right here let me change you”
That’s pretty fucking rude. I am continually amazed by how much women are expected to tolerate.
Yes, it is rude.
Tell us a story of the last time you witnessed someone telling a man to smile because he would look so much better if he did.
I can’t, either. That’s why.
An older trucker told me (a man (at the time)) that I’d look better if i did. Not “cuter” or “prettier” but it felt slimy, still. I have one example of that and hecking dozens of examples of these old fucks hitting on female cashiers. Straight up inviting a young woman into the shower with regularity. Anyway,
yeah, this is why its sexist: Men want women to make their dick hard (in a manner of speaking).
Nobody asked Luigi to smile, he just did…
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I agree with the sentiment but I, a man, actually get told to smile more weirdly often working retail.
That’s one exception that doesn’t surprise me. Do you have any sense of how often they are doing this with intentional irony compared to with genuine obliviousness?
It’s really only creepy old dudes I get it from. It seems pretty genuine most of the time. These comments are more frequent and more egregious with my women coworkers, though, as one might expect.
How interesting! That makes it even less surprising.
And they say it’s because “you’re prettier when you smile” or something like that?
Well people have frequently mistaken me for a woman most of my life and thats happened to me a few times. Its intrusive and irritating to be told I should look a certain way, especially by a stranger and I would consider it rude to say to anyone unsolicited.
Thats not to say its not worse for women having to deal with the objectification layer, too.
I can tell you 100 stories of telling a man to eat more so that they wouldn’t be so skinny.
People have told me, it’s how I’ve seen friends and family go trough dating profiles, and weirdly enough I once saw a researcher use a lot of tech and data just to conclude the journalist should smile more
I’m enjoying being told about these counterexamples, as I’m seeing even more clearly how this attitude is embedded in our shared culture.
So far, all the specific contexts people have mentioned to me in which men are being told to smile is one in which others feel entitled to the man attempting to impress them. In contexts such as dating or performing on video or working in retail, this doesn’t particularly surprise me.
I suppose another reasonable context is one in which the people asking you to smile are genuinely worried about your emotional state and want you to seem happier. By chance is it typically like that for you? (Let’s set aside for now the complex matter of whether they actually want you to feel better or they merely want to control your behavior or feel less uncomfortable themselves.)
Good point.
I think you should ask men to smile more (like at the grocery store or gym) and see how it goes. 😉
I don’t know if it’s sexist but it sure as hell is annoying. Don’t tell people to smile if you don’t have a very good reason.
The problem lies in wanting women to look better in the first place.
Not an issue for men?
Not as much as “needing to toughen up”.
Oof “pretend your feelings don’t exist” is not a good idea. But yep, just like “man up” it’s horrid advice.
Context matters:
Taking a group photo? Stock photo models? PR? Greeter? - yes, asking someone to smile for a goal is fine
Someone just minding their own business - no, asking them to smile is selfish and just for your personal satisfaction. People don’t need to justify to you why they don’t feel like smiling. It’s rude to demand it of others
Greeter? you think the people at walmart want to be there? 60+ and the best job they find is minimum wage and standing on their feet all day getting ignored by people mostly so other employees don’t walk out the front with loot?
Do you have an example?
The only time I can imagine someone asking someone else to smile is when taking photos.
I don’t have an example because I knew it wasn’t a good thing to do, so I didn’t (and won’t!) do it. I just didn’t know why, but those who have responded have helped explain!
In general it’s asking another person to change their appearance to suit your preferences rather than just respecting whatever mood they’re in or how their naturally resting face just looks, it’s a dick move. Forcing a smile also sucks. It takes some amount of conscious effort to maintain a forced smile and smiling does engage quite a few muscles in the face, about 43 different muscles to make a smile.
Combine all of that with the history of women very much not having any kind of power in our society, and it takes on a more sinister tone when directed at women, hinting at the idea of someone’s only valuable because they have a pretty face and it should be pretty all the time.
It’s not sexist, it’s threatening.
While you may mean well, the vast majority of times a woman is complemented by an acquaintance or stranger, it’s because that person is trying to hit on the woman.
You might think “shouldn’t that be flattering?” No, it really isn’t. Every single woman I know has countless stories about how they have been harassed by desperate men trying to get into their pants. If you could barely walk into a public place without random strangers harassing you, you’d be soured on the idea too. To further compound the problem, men are on average bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than women.
So as an example, I was out with my girlfriend once, walking down a crowded street. There was a group of people we had to walk around so we went single file. In less than 30 seconds, she already had some shitty man cat calling her with loaded compliments. I shoved some people aside to make sure I was standing next to her again and he shut up immediately. This is just a fact of life for most women.
Men may not understand this because they only very rarely receive random compliments, but it hits very different as a woman.
There is an appropriate time to compliment women, and it’s after you have already built up a trusting friendship. Besides, a compliment means more coming from a friend than a stranger.
I constantly have to remind myself that I can be perceived as “threatening”, because I’m typically not threatening at all. Having some empathy is a good start, but there’s so much I don’t know about what women deal with on a daily basis.
“dangerous by default” because you are a man and just as disposable; ain’t the patriarchy swell?
apparently everything. Why do women need to “look better”?
It is generally uncouth to tell anyone how to feel regardless of gender. Compel the person to feel through your own words and actions. If you fail to achieve the desired results, change your tact.
If you fail to achieve the desired results, change your tact.
Or maybe just leave other people the fuck alone to live their lives in peace.
I think it’s because they usually mean “Shut up, I don’t care what you’re thinking about, just be pretty.”
That feels depressingly accurate. Ick.
“Your emotional and mental reality is less important than my physical appreciation/judgement of you.”
I’ve never been the sort of person to ask or insist anyone to display a particular expression. But…
At times I’ve encountered friends, both male and female, that were struggling in life and crying.
Sometimes I would smile at them and say “Hey, you’re leaking again”
I almost always got them to lift their spirits and smile, with a bit of a lighthearted chuckle even.
Though not a moment I’d take a photo of, out of respect, it still reminds me how easy it can be to get a friend to smile.
Because it’s sexist to ask me to look better for you
I initially didn’t understand the context of the question as I assumed you meant when taking a photo.
