It’s not surprising for women to be minding their own business when either a family member, friend, acquaintance, or even stranger goes up to them and comments, “hey, smile!” with a tone showing purely good intentions, but those words displaying distasteful concepts. What’s so wrong about this? Are we just overreacting? I don’t know–I’ve never seen anyone tell a man to smile, and I’ve never seen a woman telling another woman to smile in a way that portrays a sense of entitlement and standards. It seems like the victims of these irritating situations always end up to be women, and the perpetrators happen to be creepy, annoying men.
If I’m not smiling, then why do I need to? If I’m not smiling, then why would some invasive man telling me to smile give me a reason to do so? If I’m not smiling, then your unnecessary comment will not benefit me in any way–it will only make my facial expression display annoyance and disgust. Is that any better?
It has become a known fact that many women possess of the famous “resting bitch face,” and this is when the situation of telling a woman to smile most comes up. As if having a resting bitch face is the worst trait in the world, it can cause men to constantly target you because your facial expression bothers them. Somehow, men have found out how to become offended by something that has nothing to do with them. And because of their sense of entitlement, they think it’s okay to bring it up and tell women what to do. But, what’s new, right?
So if you’re a man, or even any gender, and you think it’s a good idea to tell someone, anyone, that they should be smiling–don’t. One’s facial expression is simply not of enough importance for anyone to tell them what it should be. One should not be held up to standards and expected to show emotions they might not be feeling. So, if someone’s not smiling, they don’t need to be.
