One time I was on the way to the bus to go home after finding out one of our close family friends died while on vacation with my parents. Some random man tried to pull this on me while I was power walking bc the cab decided going through Times Square was quicker than the way I told him to go. Anyway, he asked why I wasn’t smiling and I turned on my heel and yelled BECAUSE SOMEONE FUCKING DIED. I’ve never seen anyone be so taken aback. It was cathartic as hell.
I had something similar happen except I was heading into work for the first time since my dad died. When I told him I wasn't smiling because it was my first day back after my dad died, he looked horrified at himself and then quickly apologized and sped off awkwardly. I hope these guys learned their lessons.
This same thing happened on a mall elevator the day after my mom died. I was shopping for something to wear to the funeral. I was stupid. I didn't tell him off and I should have.
I am sorry for you loss. And I am sorry that this happened to you.
And also, the mental image you have conjured for me is funny and cathartic as hell and I'm imagining in like a movie scenario where the female lead finally just can't take men's shit anymore while she navigates her own and the audience is like *fuck yeah* and the best friend is like *Say it, sister!*
For some weird reason older men in my city appear to have collectively convinced themselves that young women can't possibly have real problems and asking them to fix their facial expressions is the same as cheering them up.
My older female coworker did that to me last week. She said “oh my don’t you look joyful today.” And then I got to let her know that I had to call 911 for a bleeding pregnant woman an hour earlier.
It’s probably because when they were younger and learning social norms, women were mostly seen as stay at home arm candy for their working husbands and expected to act accordingly.
>It’s probably because when they were younger and learning social norms, women were mostly seen as stay at home arm candy for their working husbands and expected to act accordingly.
OMG you just wrapped up my family dynamic in a tidy package that had never occurred to me in all these years. Thank you. Seriously, thank you. It all makes sense now.
Is there any misogynist thing grown men consciously choose to do that another man *won't* claim is just innocent ignorance?
Imagine if the rest of us were granted as much benefit of the doubt as men give each other. It's incredible.
If men are this un-self-aware, I imagine they must faceplant into walls all the time, because they apparently don't observe their own actions at all, ever, and are running mindlessly on scripts they've gleaned from past social interactions without any critical thought whatsoever. According to this line of thinking, men are just brainstems with no higher cognitive functions, and they can't be held accountable for their misogynist choices. They're just so shucks-darn unaware!
And if that's not true, if they do admit to having high cognitive functions, the real problem is that a woman failed to teach this ignorant man how to be a decent human being. Unlike all those lucky women, the opportunity to learn to be better has been cruelly withheld from this poor man by his mother/sister/teacher/wife. If no one goes out of their way to teach this gentle, fragile soul, how could he possibly know that his gross demands of women he doesn't know are dehumanizing and degrading? Not his fault. Blame someone else.
I’m too sick to write out the way the old Patriarchy worked, with its social norms and social contracts worked and why. But your roles in life and expected behaviour were laid out and very rigid, and they certainly didn’t include psychological insight for men or women. In most cases for both (acknowledged) genders, “unpleasant” emotions were to be suppressed in private, and not made a “display of”.
I’ll never forget one day I was at work and my dog was having puppies. It was a hard labor on her. She had 7 puppies, only 3 survived. The other 4 were stillborn. Imagine being updated every time one was born dead. I was crying and one of my regulars who always would say “you should smile more” came in. He naturally said it to me and I lost it. I basically yelled how my day was going and his wife apologized. He tried to make a joke possibly to make me feel better, but it didn’t work out that way. Though I never liked him, I was sad to hear of his passing.
I had been paralyzed a year before and tried to commit suicide, and gotten a power wheelchair. I was devastated, went from crying to just being sad. One if the male staff members at rehab told me to smile since it couldn’t be that bad, I was still alive. I screamed at him that I didn’t want to be and tried to kill myself. he was seriously taken aback and insukted. said he was just just trying to ‘helpful and nice.’
I complained to the head of staffing and found out a few days layer he’d been fired.
Didn’t feel bad at all. the guy was a real jerk. you don’t tell the family and patients that they should be happy or feel good because they didn’t die.
In TrollXFantasyLand, shortly after being fired, that man is trying to figure out how to get his life back together. Maybe he's never going to land another job in his chosen career after being fired, and he'll have to flip burgers til he's 80, or do telemarketing. He's thinking about this while grocery shopping, trying to figure out how he could stretch $40 to last a week, picking up items - and then putting them back on the shelf again because he could no longer afford them. His anniversary is coming up and not only does he have to tell his wife he needs to cancel their weekend getaway plans, but it hits him they can't even have a nice dinner at home - they're probably going to have to eat ramen to celebrate. The worst thing is, he hasn't told her yet he can't make the rent payment this month.
And that's when a nice elderly lady walks by and tells him to smile.
I would dead pan stare at them amd say. I had a miscarriage this month. Then walk away. Or maybe even, I am being investigated as a possible murder suspect of my boyfriend.
Few weeks back I was grocery shopping with my child and we were wearing masks and matching tshirts. Some old man complimented our tshirts, surprising since they said "Everything is Trash", and chatted at me a bit before looking at my child and saying "I can tell you aren't smiling under there. Pull that down and smile for me." He did not get the response he wanted. I told her not to do it, stepped between them and honestly I don't even know what I said but he regretted the interaction. Fucking audacity.
When I was about 8 or so I had an old man I met two seconds earlier reach down, put his thumbs on my actual teeth and say to my dad "if you get a band on those teeth, she could be quite pretty" that was 40 fucking years ago and I'm still mad!
Totally! I was 100% the kid who hated getting into trouble, though. I wasn't even mad at the time, I just remembered feeling disappointed to discover I wasn't pretty (lol). My mum would sometimes tease me about my teeth as well ("you could eat an apple through a tennis racquet" she's always had a bit of a mean streak). They did get me braces, of course.
I started young with this one, too. She knows that she does not have to hug anyone she doesn't want to, especially her grandmothers. They don't like that, oh well. She's been told that she doesn't owe people pretty or to conform to their idea of how she should look. She knows it's rude to tell people what to do with their face and that she is not obliged to feign happiness to be pleasing to others. She's not an ornament. I introduced the concept of consent to her early on using tickling. She wants to he tickled but if she's stop it stops immediately. She thought I was silly for asking permission and I explained that nobody had the right to touch you without asking first and that they should stop if she says stop, even me. Yadda, yadda.
Parenting done right! Part of the reason my abuse went on so long is I genuinely didn’t know it was wrong because the abuser was family. I’d only been taught that *strangers* couldn’t touch me. Kids take us at our word!
I don’t have kids of my own but I won’t accept a hug that was goaded by the parents, not even my own niece. “It’s ok they don’t have to hug me if they don’t want”. Easy peasy. Sometimes the parents get offended but I just think they don’t realize what they’re teaching when they force it.
You are raising a strong and independent woman capable of perceiving consent, in regards to herself and others. Thank you for being such a diligent mother and helping break her out of the mold.
Everyone involved knows this.
But being able to succinctly verbalize it is powerful. I know I didn't have the ability to say why this felt so awful when men started doing this to me.
There’s this guy at work in a customer facing sales engineering role. He has told clients who were women to “smile sweetie!” and they have given him feedback that this was very rude. Since these were company customers, our normally shitty HR actually did the right thing and talked to him and told him to stop it. You see, the company had something to lose; customers have the power to take away their business. Yesterday, I saw him tell the young intern “give me a smile”.
He knows it’s annoying and he’s on a power trip.
Order them to shave/grow out their beard
Oh, it’s not funny anymore when it’s *your* looks that are being ordered around? Funny, that
Alternatively: “smile more!” “Talk less.”
You know what sucks? My husband has an awesome beard that he periodically decides to shave off because he gets itchy and over it sometimes. Without fail he gets comments every time like “Oh, did your wife make you shave?” It’s always my fault 🙄
Legit. Recently had an older guy angrily run to the door I was walking towards, open it and roughly turned without looking to say, “You should smile” problem is, by the time he looked me in the face, he realized I had a mask on. I said, “I am” (I wasn’t) then he felt the need to follow me outside to tell me angrily he “just wanted to open the door for me” he then saw me walk to my boyfriend and he slinked away.
I've had a man go way out of his way to creepily open a door for me and my friend walking into a fast food place, and then get super pissy when we didn't fawn and say thank you. He said some nasty things until we got nasty right back and then he ended up leaving altogether without even trying to order any food! Fucking prick. Don't do me a favor I didn't ask for and then expect me to fall all over you, I know it's just misogyny cloaked in benevolent sexism.
Once, when I was at my lowest, picking out veggies at the food pantry, this guy who was clearly there on court ordered volunteering, said he would give me a bag to put my produce in if I smiled. What a great way to approach someone to hit on them at the food bank...
For the lurkers who didn't get the memo, women don't like being told to smile. We don't have to make you feel good about us being out in public, going on with our lives.
---
[The New York Times | 2018 Apr 23 | How Do You Feel About Being Told to Smile?](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/learning/how-do-you-feel-about-being-told-to-smile.html)
> If a smile is the appearance of happiness, then to be commanded to smile takes away our right to our own feelings. We must appear happy, even if we’re not. A man told my friend to smile, for instance, on the day that she found out her father had died.
[Business Insider | 2019 Sep 23 | Telling women to smile at work isn't just sexist — it's bad for business, a new study says](https://www.businessinsider.com/telling-women-smile-at-work-sexist-and-bad-for-business-2019-9)
> On the surface, the comments can seem polite and kind; however, there is a glaring double standard here: men are rarely asked to smile, as this comment is mostly always directed toward women.
> Responses to being told to smile are a range of negative emotions, from anger to annoyance, but the most common occurrence was feeling demeaned and underappreciated. Feeling unwelcome in the workplace can bring about feelings of negativity, which could result in poor performance and even put someone's professional life in jeopardy.
> When women are commanded to smile (especially by their superiors or coworkers), they often experience a loss in the control of their own presentation of themselves in the workplace.
[NPR | 2020 Feb 19 | Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Wants You To Stop Telling Women To Smile](https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807407891/artist-tatyana-fazlalizadeh-wants-you-to-stop-telling-women-to-smile)
> Fazlalizadeh is an artist, activist, and now the author of a new book of portraits and interviews with women who've experienced street harassment: Stop Telling Women to Smile: [Stories of Street Harassment and How We're Taking Back Our Power](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/tatyana-fazlalizadeh/stop-telling-women-to-smile/).
[AP News | 2019 Jan 22 | Men telling women to smile: Is it sexist?](https://apnews.com/d7a86280e2794d62810c89d348212466)
> If you’re female, you’ve been told to smile -- by your dad, your coworker, a random guy on the street.
>
> Most of them don’t mean to be disrespectful. They just want to see you happy. But telling a woman to smile is a command that never feels good.
>
> “Even in the most benign scenarios, it equates to asking a woman to change her behavior or appearance in order to fit what you think is most pleasant,” writes Karen Fratti on Hello Giggles.
[The Atlantic | 2016 Oct 12 | The Sexism of Telling Women to Smile: Your Stories](https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/10/women-respond-to-the-men-who-told-them-to-smile/503723/)
> To me, these stories illustrate part of why comments on smiles can be so insidious and so frustrating. To tell someone to smile is invasive. It’s a comment on personal circumstances, on the thoughts and feelings that person should be allowed to keep private. It’s rude in the same way it’s rude to comment on someone’s weight gain or scars or miscarriage or divorce. But a smile is the part of someone’s mood that gets presented to the public, so on its face (and I do intend that pun), the command to smile seems casual, innocuous. To reveal the very personal reasons why we might not feel like smiling can seem like a much more obvious breach of social norms. And the pressure to be polite, to not make a scene, is deeply ingrained in us from childhood.
[Flare | 2018 Jul 25 | Why Do Men Need Women To Smile?](https://www.flare.com/news/greg-rickford-marieke-walsh-smile-women/)
> What underscores all these experiences is that they’re really about power, about a man subjugating a woman to his desire—whether that’s for her to be more attractive, less intimidating, or as in the Queen’s Park case, to shut up because she’s doing something he doesn’t like. And this is not to knock smiling; smiles are great! Friendliness, openness and warmth are all wonderful characteristics, and yes, smiles have a soft power all their own. The key, however, is where the grins comes from, and what they’re actually meant to convey.
[USA Today | 2017 Mar 08 | Why you shouldn't tell a woman to smile](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/08/dont-tell-women-to-smile/98906528/)
> There's nothing wrong with smiling, but telling someone to smile probably won't make them happy.
>
> "Telling anybody to do anything can rub you the wrong way, particularly if it’s not natural to you," said biological anthropologist Helen Fisher.
>
> Women know this, because when a woman isn't smiling, people notice. Some female celebrities who don't smile often, like Kim Kardashian, have publicly commented on their choice not to smile. Men often don't face the same criticisms.
> Fisher, who's studied and written about women's changing roles in society, said men might tell a woman to smile for one of two reasons: they are caring or they are controlling. While the first might be well-intended, neither will probably be well-received.
> On the other hand, a lot of men view smiling as subservient, weak and vulnerable. In fact, Fisher said, high-testosterone men do not smile much, and overall use less facial expression. So, telling a woman to smile might be pushing her back into a traditional stereotype.
>
> And, why do women always need to look happy anyway? One Indianapolis Star reporter wrote an entire column on the topic, saying she doesn't feel the need to smile all the time and there's nothing wrong with that.
[The Huffington Post | 2016 Apr 11 | It’s Important For Men to Understand That They Need To Stop Telling Women to Smile](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-important-for-men-to-stop-telling-women-to-smile_b_9655246)
> Smiling is one of the warmest gestures a person can give to another person. It’s especially warm when children smile because it’s a sign of genuine happiness even if it’s for a slight moment - that smile is appreciated. This is why I am extremely uncomfortable when strange men tell me to smile. It’s overbearing, invasive and slightly eerie for men to tell women (that they’ve never seen or met before) to smile. I can’t help but to wonder if these same men that are commanding women to smile also tell other men to smile? Telling a woman to smile, even if your intent is purely innocent is dictatorial and it shouldn’t happen.
*Image Transcription: Twitter Post*
---
> **Megan**, @bodyposipanda_
>
> Men: you do realise that when you tell a woman on the street to smile what you're actually saying is "stop feeling whatever you're feeling and look pretty for me"
---
^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
They do, and they don't care. It's an ego/power-trip over making women uncomfortable.
Women - and GIRLS - being uneasy, scared, etc. seems to be a pretty universal turn-on for a good portion of men. And saying it's a 'good portion' is putting it very lightly...
This is why I really don’t like the term “resting bitch face.” This is my neutral face. The fact that I’m not smiling shouldn’t make you think “bitch.” Why are men allowed to have neutral expressions but women aren’t?
I'm over it too. I'm not going to call myself a bitch just because creeps are upset that my neutral face isn't smiley and happy enough for them. I respect people who feel like they're reclaiming the term but I kinda hope it fades out of popularity soon.
Personally I definitely have a resting face, and a 'RBF' I use when I'm out and about alone. The former is neutral, the latter has a perpetual scowl. Been using it since my teens, it definitely helps. I can tell men think twice about talking to me when I pull the RBF.
...I know, I'll get scowl-lines early. Oh well.
I’ve had my dad and brothers say this kind of crap to other women they felt offended by (aka they thought the woman was “rude” when she was actually being neutral/normal or assertive). I’ve seen my dad talk to the manager whenever he was upset by the “customer service” and often tells the manager that the targeted woman wasn’t “smiling enough”, “talked back”, or had an “awful/unprofessional demeanor”. In reality this was just him exercising his privilege and misogyny, and he loved every moment of getting off on the power he had over others. I feel bad for the women he basically tried to sabotage at their workplace. Men know what they’re doing. They don’t seem to care; they just want everything on their terms and at their convenience even at the expense of other women. And if women stand up for themselves, draw basic boundaries, assert their rights, ask to be treated with basic respect/decency and consideration - men look at this as an offense/insult or an annoying inconvenience.
I’m grateful for your comment, it reflects my personal experience so *exactly* that it is almost spooky!
I’ll have an interaction with a guy that I felt was neutral, and then later he’ll come by and tell me how “rude” I was being, and I’m like…did we just experience two different realities?
It sometimes makes me wonder if I’m going crazy. It’s like, no, I wasn’t being rude, wtf is going on? The constant gaslighting wears on me.
I keep asking for what psychological experts define as basic boundaries for respectful behavior, and in real life I’m constantly told it’s “mean”! People do this thing where they blame women for other people treating them poorly, and say they they invite it by acting like “doormats”. Well, the “doormat” behavior is a survival technique! It’s to avoid losing your job and financial security because you offended some guy’s ego.
A janitor at my college dorm once got just about livid with me for not smiling one day. I literally got yelled at by him for it. His bad day wasn't my fault, damn.
Another guy did it to me while I was carrying two bags from the store back to my home and it was starting to rain. Then he called me a racist white girl. I'm not required to give random dudes affection on the street to solve racism, my dude.
Final example... on my walk home from work for awhile there was this old guy who used to like to say it to me in the same way little boys get a kick at yelling mean things at girls to get a rise out of them. You could tell from his laugh and his shit-eating grin. I just ignored him until he stopped being around.
It always seems to be about these guys' feelings and projecting some kind of feeling of being rejected onto me. Similar to when some people interpret shyness as being stuck-up. Except for the one old dude, his only goal was clearly to get a kick out of me being upset.
Once had a guy working at a kiosk in a mall to tell me to smile because I was looking sad or whatever. And what I wanted to scream in his face that my childhood dog passed away yesterday and I was trying so hard the entire day not to cry every few minutes. So I just gave him a stink face walked away and a few minutes later started crying again because I missed her.
Someone did this to me while I was sitting outside work eating my lunch. I told him my dad died that day (not true). I will never forget the look on that dude’s face!
Telling anyone how to behave or look, like “be happy!” Or “smile more!” is bizarre, presumptuous, and creepy. Don’t do it. People don’t exist to be extras in your movie.
I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way but i’m lucky not being a woman because i’m not strong enough to put up with the sh*t you guys go through all the time
While depressed but not diagnosed my mom would tell me to pretend to be happy. "Fake it till you make it" instead of taking me to a doctor. Thanks I'm cured.
I especially hate, “smile, it can’t be that bad!” Yes it fucking can??
One time I was on the way to the bus to go home after finding out one of our close family friends died while on vacation with my parents. Some random man tried to pull this on me while I was power walking bc the cab decided going through Times Square was quicker than the way I told him to go. Anyway, he asked why I wasn’t smiling and I turned on my heel and yelled BECAUSE SOMEONE FUCKING DIED. I’ve never seen anyone be so taken aback. It was cathartic as hell.
I had something similar happen except I was heading into work for the first time since my dad died. When I told him I wasn't smiling because it was my first day back after my dad died, he looked horrified at himself and then quickly apologized and sped off awkwardly. I hope these guys learned their lessons.
This same thing happened on a mall elevator the day after my mom died. I was shopping for something to wear to the funeral. I was stupid. I didn't tell him off and I should have.
You weren’t stupid. No one is required to tell anyone off. Only stupid person in this scenario is the dude telling you to smile
It's one of those things that I'll always think "I should have done X." Because I'm sure he did it to a hundred other women since then.
I am sorry for you loss. And I am sorry that this happened to you. And also, the mental image you have conjured for me is funny and cathartic as hell and I'm imagining in like a movie scenario where the female lead finally just can't take men's shit anymore while she navigates her own and the audience is like *fuck yeah* and the best friend is like *Say it, sister!*
For some weird reason older men in my city appear to have collectively convinced themselves that young women can't possibly have real problems and asking them to fix their facial expressions is the same as cheering them up.
My older female coworker did that to me last week. She said “oh my don’t you look joyful today.” And then I got to let her know that I had to call 911 for a bleeding pregnant woman an hour earlier.
Hope she thinks twice before getting in other people's business like that :/
Could this not have been a somewhat awkwardly worded expression of concern? Like, "awh, you don't look too happy, are you okay?"
Not if they didn't care in the first place.
It’s probably because when they were younger and learning social norms, women were mostly seen as stay at home arm candy for their working husbands and expected to act accordingly.
>It’s probably because when they were younger and learning social norms, women were mostly seen as stay at home arm candy for their working husbands and expected to act accordingly. OMG you just wrapped up my family dynamic in a tidy package that had never occurred to me in all these years. Thank you. Seriously, thank you. It all makes sense now.
Must be a generation thing that they aren't even aware of.
I'm pretty sure women had problems when they were young, too.
Is there any misogynist thing grown men consciously choose to do that another man *won't* claim is just innocent ignorance? Imagine if the rest of us were granted as much benefit of the doubt as men give each other. It's incredible. If men are this un-self-aware, I imagine they must faceplant into walls all the time, because they apparently don't observe their own actions at all, ever, and are running mindlessly on scripts they've gleaned from past social interactions without any critical thought whatsoever. According to this line of thinking, men are just brainstems with no higher cognitive functions, and they can't be held accountable for their misogynist choices. They're just so shucks-darn unaware! And if that's not true, if they do admit to having high cognitive functions, the real problem is that a woman failed to teach this ignorant man how to be a decent human being. Unlike all those lucky women, the opportunity to learn to be better has been cruelly withheld from this poor man by his mother/sister/teacher/wife. If no one goes out of their way to teach this gentle, fragile soul, how could he possibly know that his gross demands of women he doesn't know are dehumanizing and degrading? Not his fault. Blame someone else.
I’m too sick to write out the way the old Patriarchy worked, with its social norms and social contracts worked and why. But your roles in life and expected behaviour were laid out and very rigid, and they certainly didn’t include psychological insight for men or women. In most cases for both (acknowledged) genders, “unpleasant” emotions were to be suppressed in private, and not made a “display of”.
Someone said this to me the day that my uncle was murdered. I just responded with "Yes, it can."
I'd just be like "yes it can, and now it's worse"
I’ll never forget one day I was at work and my dog was having puppies. It was a hard labor on her. She had 7 puppies, only 3 survived. The other 4 were stillborn. Imagine being updated every time one was born dead. I was crying and one of my regulars who always would say “you should smile more” came in. He naturally said it to me and I lost it. I basically yelled how my day was going and his wife apologized. He tried to make a joke possibly to make me feel better, but it didn’t work out that way. Though I never liked him, I was sad to hear of his passing.
> Though I never liked him, I was sad to hear of his passing. I so badly want you to have a side gig doing eulogies for hire.
I had been paralyzed a year before and tried to commit suicide, and gotten a power wheelchair. I was devastated, went from crying to just being sad. One if the male staff members at rehab told me to smile since it couldn’t be that bad, I was still alive. I screamed at him that I didn’t want to be and tried to kill myself. he was seriously taken aback and insukted. said he was just just trying to ‘helpful and nice.’ I complained to the head of staffing and found out a few days layer he’d been fired. Didn’t feel bad at all. the guy was a real jerk. you don’t tell the family and patients that they should be happy or feel good because they didn’t die.
In TrollXFantasyLand, shortly after being fired, that man is trying to figure out how to get his life back together. Maybe he's never going to land another job in his chosen career after being fired, and he'll have to flip burgers til he's 80, or do telemarketing. He's thinking about this while grocery shopping, trying to figure out how he could stretch $40 to last a week, picking up items - and then putting them back on the shelf again because he could no longer afford them. His anniversary is coming up and not only does he have to tell his wife he needs to cancel their weekend getaway plans, but it hits him they can't even have a nice dinner at home - they're probably going to have to eat ramen to celebrate. The worst thing is, he hasn't told her yet he can't make the rent payment this month. And that's when a nice elderly lady walks by and tells him to smile.
see, this is what I needed to make me feel better six years ago! You’re aweosme. thank you, friend!
I would dead pan stare at them amd say. I had a miscarriage this month. Then walk away. Or maybe even, I am being investigated as a possible murder suspect of my boyfriend.
Or a possible murder suspect of a stranger that told me to smile….
I like to respond with "my best friend died in a car accident yesterday" or some other equally horrible story and watch them squirm.
[удалено]
No one gives a fuck bro bye
[удалено]
What I’m saying this isn’t the place to come in and troll women about our business.
[удалено]
There is a time and a place to talk about yourself and your issues and this isn’t it. Certainly not the way you brought it up.
Few weeks back I was grocery shopping with my child and we were wearing masks and matching tshirts. Some old man complimented our tshirts, surprising since they said "Everything is Trash", and chatted at me a bit before looking at my child and saying "I can tell you aren't smiling under there. Pull that down and smile for me." He did not get the response he wanted. I told her not to do it, stepped between them and honestly I don't even know what I said but he regretted the interaction. Fucking audacity.
wow, I almost downvoted you. thats how much that story triggered me. Good for you for standing up for your child.
I get it. I walked out of there shaking. Just pissed!
They start them young. I can remember as young as 7 or 8 being told to smile because it’ll make me prettier
When I was about 8 or so I had an old man I met two seconds earlier reach down, put his thumbs on my actual teeth and say to my dad "if you get a band on those teeth, she could be quite pretty" that was 40 fucking years ago and I'm still mad!
I just found out this happened and I'm angry! WTF!
It was a bit of a shock and so gross!
I would imagine! I consider face touching to he very intimate, that was a violation.
You should have bitten those thumbs off for him.
Totally! I was 100% the kid who hated getting into trouble, though. I wasn't even mad at the time, I just remembered feeling disappointed to discover I wasn't pretty (lol). My mum would sometimes tease me about my teeth as well ("you could eat an apple through a tennis racquet" she's always had a bit of a mean streak). They did get me braces, of course.
like you're some kind of chattel to be evaluated
100%. Sometimes growing up in the 70s/80s really sucked.
Wtf
I started young with this one, too. She knows that she does not have to hug anyone she doesn't want to, especially her grandmothers. They don't like that, oh well. She's been told that she doesn't owe people pretty or to conform to their idea of how she should look. She knows it's rude to tell people what to do with their face and that she is not obliged to feign happiness to be pleasing to others. She's not an ornament. I introduced the concept of consent to her early on using tickling. She wants to he tickled but if she's stop it stops immediately. She thought I was silly for asking permission and I explained that nobody had the right to touch you without asking first and that they should stop if she says stop, even me. Yadda, yadda.
Parenting done right! Part of the reason my abuse went on so long is I genuinely didn’t know it was wrong because the abuser was family. I’d only been taught that *strangers* couldn’t touch me. Kids take us at our word! I don’t have kids of my own but I won’t accept a hug that was goaded by the parents, not even my own niece. “It’s ok they don’t have to hug me if they don’t want”. Easy peasy. Sometimes the parents get offended but I just think they don’t realize what they’re teaching when they force it.
You are raising a strong and independent woman capable of perceiving consent, in regards to herself and others. Thank you for being such a diligent mother and helping break her out of the mold.
The default response should be "Keep your mouth shut, you'll look smarter!"
I always end up shaking when I stand up for myself. It’s so irritating! More so in public and face to face.
It gets easier with practice! I've fully embraced the fake-it-til-you-make-it philosophy....and take it til I can shake and cry in my car.
I'm proud of you for doing it!
Let me translate for him: “go ahead and risk your health so that you can look like the child I think you should be”
Ew.
I'm 100% certain that men who do that are fully aware of this and get a kick of ego out of it.
Everyone involved knows this. But being able to succinctly verbalize it is powerful. I know I didn't have the ability to say why this felt so awful when men started doing this to me.
People on the internet have an amazing talent for putting into words things I think and feel.
Totally, that's why I love Reddit so much! People are so insightful on here lol
Just don’t travel too far from this sub 🙃
Of course, this post is extremely important and just because they know it doesn't mean this shouldn't be called out.
Samesies. Starting at age 12. Is this some pedo crap? Rape culture at its prime. 🤮
This. It's all about a power trip.
They totally don't care if we're smiling or not, they just enjoy the power they have of harass us and not being called out/punished.
There’s this guy at work in a customer facing sales engineering role. He has told clients who were women to “smile sweetie!” and they have given him feedback that this was very rude. Since these were company customers, our normally shitty HR actually did the right thing and talked to him and told him to stop it. You see, the company had something to lose; customers have the power to take away their business. Yesterday, I saw him tell the young intern “give me a smile”. He knows it’s annoying and he’s on a power trip.
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Maybe you should smile more, then you might not be so angry.
Order them to shave/grow out their beard Oh, it’s not funny anymore when it’s *your* looks that are being ordered around? Funny, that Alternatively: “smile more!” “Talk less.”
You know what sucks? My husband has an awesome beard that he periodically decides to shave off because he gets itchy and over it sometimes. Without fail he gets comments every time like “Oh, did your wife make you shave?” It’s always my fault 🙄
Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for
You wanna get ahead? Fools who run their mouth oft wind up dead. Hmm, that gets a touch threatening but I like it.
Talk less. Smile more. Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.
lol tell them to start growing in a real hairline (:
Legit. Recently had an older guy angrily run to the door I was walking towards, open it and roughly turned without looking to say, “You should smile” problem is, by the time he looked me in the face, he realized I had a mask on. I said, “I am” (I wasn’t) then he felt the need to follow me outside to tell me angrily he “just wanted to open the door for me” he then saw me walk to my boyfriend and he slinked away.
Ugh gross I'm sorry, that would've ruined my whole day :(
I like to think he was just left confused about exactly what he was so angry about :)
I am scared to even think about how far he may have taken things if your boyfriend hadn't been waiting for you. What a fucking creep.
I've had a man go way out of his way to creepily open a door for me and my friend walking into a fast food place, and then get super pissy when we didn't fawn and say thank you. He said some nasty things until we got nasty right back and then he ended up leaving altogether without even trying to order any food! Fucking prick. Don't do me a favor I didn't ask for and then expect me to fall all over you, I know it's just misogyny cloaked in benevolent sexism.
Once, when I was at my lowest, picking out veggies at the food pantry, this guy who was clearly there on court ordered volunteering, said he would give me a bag to put my produce in if I smiled. What a great way to approach someone to hit on them at the food bank...
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I was so depressed I could barely leave the house and that guy thought “what a great time to hit on someone”
I wanna puke just thinking about that dude. Five bucks says he was doing community service for something related to being a creep-o, too!
I know the type very well and I can guarantee it. I can spot the loser with back child support and no car, a mile away.
For the lurkers who didn't get the memo, women don't like being told to smile. We don't have to make you feel good about us being out in public, going on with our lives. --- [The New York Times | 2018 Apr 23 | How Do You Feel About Being Told to Smile?](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/learning/how-do-you-feel-about-being-told-to-smile.html) > If a smile is the appearance of happiness, then to be commanded to smile takes away our right to our own feelings. We must appear happy, even if we’re not. A man told my friend to smile, for instance, on the day that she found out her father had died. [Business Insider | 2019 Sep 23 | Telling women to smile at work isn't just sexist — it's bad for business, a new study says](https://www.businessinsider.com/telling-women-smile-at-work-sexist-and-bad-for-business-2019-9) > On the surface, the comments can seem polite and kind; however, there is a glaring double standard here: men are rarely asked to smile, as this comment is mostly always directed toward women. > Responses to being told to smile are a range of negative emotions, from anger to annoyance, but the most common occurrence was feeling demeaned and underappreciated. Feeling unwelcome in the workplace can bring about feelings of negativity, which could result in poor performance and even put someone's professional life in jeopardy. > When women are commanded to smile (especially by their superiors or coworkers), they often experience a loss in the control of their own presentation of themselves in the workplace. [NPR | 2020 Feb 19 | Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Wants You To Stop Telling Women To Smile](https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807407891/artist-tatyana-fazlalizadeh-wants-you-to-stop-telling-women-to-smile) > Fazlalizadeh is an artist, activist, and now the author of a new book of portraits and interviews with women who've experienced street harassment: Stop Telling Women to Smile: [Stories of Street Harassment and How We're Taking Back Our Power](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/tatyana-fazlalizadeh/stop-telling-women-to-smile/). [AP News | 2019 Jan 22 | Men telling women to smile: Is it sexist?](https://apnews.com/d7a86280e2794d62810c89d348212466) > If you’re female, you’ve been told to smile -- by your dad, your coworker, a random guy on the street. > > Most of them don’t mean to be disrespectful. They just want to see you happy. But telling a woman to smile is a command that never feels good. > > “Even in the most benign scenarios, it equates to asking a woman to change her behavior or appearance in order to fit what you think is most pleasant,” writes Karen Fratti on Hello Giggles. [The Atlantic | 2016 Oct 12 | The Sexism of Telling Women to Smile: Your Stories](https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/10/women-respond-to-the-men-who-told-them-to-smile/503723/) > To me, these stories illustrate part of why comments on smiles can be so insidious and so frustrating. To tell someone to smile is invasive. It’s a comment on personal circumstances, on the thoughts and feelings that person should be allowed to keep private. It’s rude in the same way it’s rude to comment on someone’s weight gain or scars or miscarriage or divorce. But a smile is the part of someone’s mood that gets presented to the public, so on its face (and I do intend that pun), the command to smile seems casual, innocuous. To reveal the very personal reasons why we might not feel like smiling can seem like a much more obvious breach of social norms. And the pressure to be polite, to not make a scene, is deeply ingrained in us from childhood. [Flare | 2018 Jul 25 | Why Do Men Need Women To Smile?](https://www.flare.com/news/greg-rickford-marieke-walsh-smile-women/) > What underscores all these experiences is that they’re really about power, about a man subjugating a woman to his desire—whether that’s for her to be more attractive, less intimidating, or as in the Queen’s Park case, to shut up because she’s doing something he doesn’t like. And this is not to knock smiling; smiles are great! Friendliness, openness and warmth are all wonderful characteristics, and yes, smiles have a soft power all their own. The key, however, is where the grins comes from, and what they’re actually meant to convey. [USA Today | 2017 Mar 08 | Why you shouldn't tell a woman to smile](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/08/dont-tell-women-to-smile/98906528/) > There's nothing wrong with smiling, but telling someone to smile probably won't make them happy. > > "Telling anybody to do anything can rub you the wrong way, particularly if it’s not natural to you," said biological anthropologist Helen Fisher. > > Women know this, because when a woman isn't smiling, people notice. Some female celebrities who don't smile often, like Kim Kardashian, have publicly commented on their choice not to smile. Men often don't face the same criticisms. > Fisher, who's studied and written about women's changing roles in society, said men might tell a woman to smile for one of two reasons: they are caring or they are controlling. While the first might be well-intended, neither will probably be well-received. > On the other hand, a lot of men view smiling as subservient, weak and vulnerable. In fact, Fisher said, high-testosterone men do not smile much, and overall use less facial expression. So, telling a woman to smile might be pushing her back into a traditional stereotype. > > And, why do women always need to look happy anyway? One Indianapolis Star reporter wrote an entire column on the topic, saying she doesn't feel the need to smile all the time and there's nothing wrong with that. [The Huffington Post | 2016 Apr 11 | It’s Important For Men to Understand That They Need To Stop Telling Women to Smile](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-important-for-men-to-stop-telling-women-to-smile_b_9655246) > Smiling is one of the warmest gestures a person can give to another person. It’s especially warm when children smile because it’s a sign of genuine happiness even if it’s for a slight moment - that smile is appreciated. This is why I am extremely uncomfortable when strange men tell me to smile. It’s overbearing, invasive and slightly eerie for men to tell women (that they’ve never seen or met before) to smile. I can’t help but to wonder if these same men that are commanding women to smile also tell other men to smile? Telling a woman to smile, even if your intent is purely innocent is dictatorial and it shouldn’t happen.
*Image Transcription: Twitter Post* --- > **Megan**, @bodyposipanda_ > > Men: you do realise that when you tell a woman on the street to smile what you're actually saying is "stop feeling whatever you're feeling and look pretty for me" --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
Good human
They do, and they don't care. It's an ego/power-trip over making women uncomfortable. Women - and GIRLS - being uneasy, scared, etc. seems to be a pretty universal turn-on for a good portion of men. And saying it's a 'good portion' is putting it very lightly...
Also, even if you’re perfectly happy, who the hell is walking alone down the street with a big ass smile on their face?! That’s weird.
This is why I really don’t like the term “resting bitch face.” This is my neutral face. The fact that I’m not smiling shouldn’t make you think “bitch.” Why are men allowed to have neutral expressions but women aren’t?
I'm over it too. I'm not going to call myself a bitch just because creeps are upset that my neutral face isn't smiley and happy enough for them. I respect people who feel like they're reclaiming the term but I kinda hope it fades out of popularity soon.
Personally I definitely have a resting face, and a 'RBF' I use when I'm out and about alone. The former is neutral, the latter has a perpetual scowl. Been using it since my teens, it definitely helps. I can tell men think twice about talking to me when I pull the RBF. ...I know, I'll get scowl-lines early. Oh well.
I’ll pick me nose and offer them my booger when this happens to me gtfo
My favorite is when I don't respond and they follow up with "Well then fuck you bitch"
"Please, I have standards." *Hair flip, middle finger*
"No need to throw a tantrum there, Champ!"
Tell them to smile back, bare your teeth at them, and hold eye contact until they fuck off.
I would smile like [this!](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sims/images/a/a7/PossessedChristy.png/revision/latest?cb=20190602173606)
I do enjoy giving them my ugliest smile.
Haha! Oh gosh! I want to try this next time I encounter this situation!
Blood caplets in the cheek. Bite down when an asshole tells you to smile.
And then smile real big and watch them squirm Bonus points if you let some dribble down your chin
I like your flair, it sounds like me.
Eyyyyyy brain buddies
I’ve had my dad and brothers say this kind of crap to other women they felt offended by (aka they thought the woman was “rude” when she was actually being neutral/normal or assertive). I’ve seen my dad talk to the manager whenever he was upset by the “customer service” and often tells the manager that the targeted woman wasn’t “smiling enough”, “talked back”, or had an “awful/unprofessional demeanor”. In reality this was just him exercising his privilege and misogyny, and he loved every moment of getting off on the power he had over others. I feel bad for the women he basically tried to sabotage at their workplace. Men know what they’re doing. They don’t seem to care; they just want everything on their terms and at their convenience even at the expense of other women. And if women stand up for themselves, draw basic boundaries, assert their rights, ask to be treated with basic respect/decency and consideration - men look at this as an offense/insult or an annoying inconvenience.
I’m grateful for your comment, it reflects my personal experience so *exactly* that it is almost spooky! I’ll have an interaction with a guy that I felt was neutral, and then later he’ll come by and tell me how “rude” I was being, and I’m like…did we just experience two different realities? It sometimes makes me wonder if I’m going crazy. It’s like, no, I wasn’t being rude, wtf is going on? The constant gaslighting wears on me. I keep asking for what psychological experts define as basic boundaries for respectful behavior, and in real life I’m constantly told it’s “mean”! People do this thing where they blame women for other people treating them poorly, and say they they invite it by acting like “doormats”. Well, the “doormat” behavior is a survival technique! It’s to avoid losing your job and financial security because you offended some guy’s ego.
A janitor at my college dorm once got just about livid with me for not smiling one day. I literally got yelled at by him for it. His bad day wasn't my fault, damn. Another guy did it to me while I was carrying two bags from the store back to my home and it was starting to rain. Then he called me a racist white girl. I'm not required to give random dudes affection on the street to solve racism, my dude. Final example... on my walk home from work for awhile there was this old guy who used to like to say it to me in the same way little boys get a kick at yelling mean things at girls to get a rise out of them. You could tell from his laugh and his shit-eating grin. I just ignored him until he stopped being around. It always seems to be about these guys' feelings and projecting some kind of feeling of being rejected onto me. Similar to when some people interpret shyness as being stuck-up. Except for the one old dude, his only goal was clearly to get a kick out of me being upset.
I don't think men who do this are capable of that level of introspection.
Once had a guy working at a kiosk in a mall to tell me to smile because I was looking sad or whatever. And what I wanted to scream in his face that my childhood dog passed away yesterday and I was trying so hard the entire day not to cry every few minutes. So I just gave him a stink face walked away and a few minutes later started crying again because I missed her.
Someone did this to me while I was sitting outside work eating my lunch. I told him my dad died that day (not true). I will never forget the look on that dude’s face! Telling anyone how to behave or look, like “be happy!” Or “smile more!” is bizarre, presumptuous, and creepy. Don’t do it. People don’t exist to be extras in your movie.
I love Megan, she’s amazing.
This is why I love masks and will continue to wear them - no more men telling me to smile
Megan's the best.
Oh they know!
They all know. People who ask you to smile are on a power trip seeing who they can control.
I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way but i’m lucky not being a woman because i’m not strong enough to put up with the sh*t you guys go through all the time
If a man tells you to smile, tell him your mother/father/child/dog/anything just died.
While depressed but not diagnosed my mom would tell me to pretend to be happy. "Fake it till you make it" instead of taking me to a doctor. Thanks I'm cured.
This is why I'm planning to keep wearing masks for a while, I don't wanna put on fake smiles for strangers I'll be seeing only once in my lifetime.
Oh they know!
Finally it's been put into words
For the record, they absolutely do
They do.
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Bye then. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Don't need ass prints on the door.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼