Charlie Glickman talks about the difficulty many men have with managing their own emotions, and the expectation that women will do it for them.
The amazing Sabrina Morgan posted this on Facebook today. (Morgan was riding in a private car service at the time the event took place.)
Driver today told me “Your fare depends on how much you smile.” ‘Jokingly’ threatened to charge me extra for staring out the window or trying to use the commute time to catch up on work rather than try to entertain him, the person I was paying for a service.Instead of relaxing and knocking out some emails, I was stressed out, feeling like I was doing unpaid companion work I hadn’t been expecting to do for an undisclosed amount that would be decided – after completion – by my customer, who was monitoring and actively critiquing my facial expressions.I sometimes underestimate the emotional labor women and people read as female are expected to perform for free. Of course, people are rarely as up front about it as my driver today was.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that had this driver’s passenger been a man, he’d never have dared to pull something like that. But there’s more to this that needs to be unpacked. It’s disturbingly common for men try to get women to smile for them. I get how annoying that is and I agree with Sabrina that it’s unpaid emotional labor. I think that more men need to look at why it happens so often.
I’ll admit that this is something that I used to do sometimes. I used to have real difficulties bearing witness to women’s discomfort, whether it was real or simply my perception of it. Knowing what I do now (and not in any way considering this an excuse), I can see that what was motivating me was the story in my head about what women’s discomfort meant. It had a lot to do with my family of origin and it wasn’t until I took a good look at that and did the work that I needed to do that I stopped wanting to “fix” women’s bad moods. For what it’s worth, I never did that to strangers. And I’d mostly stopped actually trying to get women to smile before I got my shit together, because I’d been told how obnoxious it was. But it wasn’t until I’d healed that part of me that I stopped wanting to do it.
This is a perfect example of a man asking or expecting women to coddle his emotional issues because he sees his comfort as more valuable than their labor. It’s one of the many costs of the Act Like a Man Box, the difficulty many men have with managing their own emotions, and the expectation that women will do it for them. I didn’t know how to lean into my discomfort and do the healing work that I needed to do. Instead, I tried to reduce my discomfort by controlling the trigger. In this case, that was trying to get women to stop expressing their negative feelings, even when they had nothing to do with me and despite the fact that they had every right to their emotions and their expressions.
Of course, this is hardly the only reason men do this. There’s also the fact that women are supposed to constantly be on display for men’s visual pleasure. This is sexual labor that women are expected to perform. Women are expected to be eye candy for any random dude who sees them walking down the street, and that’s ridiculous.
Women are also supposed to be accommodating and to set their own needs aside, even to a total stranger. This is another kind of emotional labor that women are expected to perform, and while the motivation may be different than the desire to not feel discomfort when we see women who seem unhappy, the way that men demand it looks pretty much the same. The impact of this is huge. A lot of men expect their desires to be more important than a woman’s needs, and that is the definition of privilege.
I’ve always found it really curious that most men, when confronted about this, will fall back on claiming that they just wanted to compliment her. They don’t see that trying to make someone smile is an attempt to control her. And while they usually deny any sexual component to their actions, I can’t help but notice how much more often it happens to women that these guys find attractive. If the frequency and tone of your compliments correlates with how attractive you think someone is, you don’t get to pretend that there’s nothing sexual about your motivations, whether you actually want to have sex with her or not. Expecting women you think are attractive to perform femininity for you is one of the many sexist microagressions that reinforce gender inequities. Stop it. You’re making the world a worse place.
And then there’s this specific situation, in which a man threatened reprisals for non-compliance. He extorted sexual and emotional labor because he could. He might have thought that he was being funny, without any intention of following through. But that’s like someone who’s big and muscular “joking” that he’s going to punch me in the face. My ability to protect myself is less than his ability to follow through on his “joke, ” and I don’t know if he’s actually going to do it. It’s a violation of trust that makes it harder for me to move through the world feeling safe. And what this driver did to Sabrina (and, I assume, does to other people) was much the same. She had to choose between compliance, confrontation, or the risk of retaliation.
That’s the deeper problem with this kind of thing. Whether the motivation is harassment, a desire for sexual validation by getting a woman to smile, or to avoid one’s own uneasiness with women’s discomfort, it’s all about controlling women. And when women don’t comply with that, they run the risk of reprisals. Women already walk through the world worrying about their safety from men, and there’s no way to know who’s going to lash out. This driver might have had no intention of following through on his threat, but how could she have known that?
So here’s my suggestion for any men who feel the urge to get a woman to smile for them. Stop and ask yourself if you would do the same thing if you were engaging with a man. If that person is your close friend and you want to help them out, then perhaps your answer is yes. Though I expect that in those situations, you’d probably ask them what was going on instead of demanding that they pretend that things are OK. If you’re training someone at work and part of their job is to smile to customers, or if you’re a photographer, then yes, telling someone to smile is a reasonable thing to do and it has nothing to do with the gender of the person.
But if you wouldn’t do it to a man, then stop it. It doesn’t matter what your motivations are. Stop it. Figure out why you expect women to perform unpaid emotional labor for you. Figure out what’s prompting you to try to control women’s emotions and behaviors and faces. Figure out why you think that’s ok. And then do what you need to do to change that about yourself so that you can be a better man. Do what you need to do to make the world a safer place. Because if you’re not making yourself part of the solution, you’re part of the problem and we don’t need that. Stop it.
Update: Stop Telling Women To Smile is an awesome art project by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh about street harassment. Check out the Kickstarter page and her video below.
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Image by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh
Ohhh ok I got it – men shouldn’t tell women to ‘smile’, but it’s cool that all of society tells men to ‘man up’. How about this? Nobody – no person – should expect another person to stifle, change, or otherwise manipulate their emotional expression for their own comfort, benefit, etc. Why are these conversations always so one-sided? “Good men” are people who are allowed emotional expression and not constantly judged as if they should never make mistakes. “Good men” are people who nurture and are nurtured. It’s a two-way street – in the USA, at least. Women aren’t powerless… Read more »
Charlie, you nailed it! These kinds of control-motivated microaggressions chip away at women’s female-centered development from a young age — until women have been subtly conditioned to comply with the rules of a male-centric world and, as you put it, perform femininity for men on demand (in addition to taking lower pay for the same work and being discriminated against in a whole host of other ways). I have experienced “Smile!” throughout much of my professional life, although happily not as much in recent years (it was mostly the older guys who said it). This comment (a command, really) had… Read more »
I have a sure fire solution to this problem of modern interaction. I don’t speak to women outside the required communication of the situational context. I save my greetings, small talk, and idle chatter for my fellow men, friends, and relations. I try not even to make eye contact with women who are not close friends or family. Since I don’t live in an urban metropolis where eye contact is some kind of space invasion, I can still see a fellow man and give the curt nod, universal acknowledgement of another’s existence. But women get the straight ahead 1000 yard… Read more »
Unfortunately, this article and its message reinforce the fact that the rude get to set the rules… because some women aren’t witty enough to have a comeback.
Some men, like you, should stop being asses. Was that witty enough? Women are not dumb and slow, they just fear what could happen if they get back at you. The same happens with us gay males, for example. We just let things go, because we fear violence. Straight men like you, that could never even try to see the problem from our side and just label us as hysterical or too weak, is a large part of the problem. WE are not the problem, and it is not our fault. Women are not the problem. Stop blaming them for… Read more »
Yes it is annoying to say the least; If a man says hello politely I will definitely smile back at him and say hello. But if I am in a rush, stressed or have my mind on other stuff and someone gets close to me (most of the time is a man) and say “common smile a little stop being so serious”… ugh!! That annoys me and guess what I do not feel like it, why don’t you just smile at people and leave me alone.
The thing that many of you seem to be missing is the implied threat that Sabrina faced in the situation described, in which the driver “jokingly” said that he would charge her more if she didn’t do what she wanted. You seem to be missing the fact that some men will tell a woman to smile and if she doesn’t, they’ll yell at her, call her names, follow her down the street, or otherwise harass her. Now, some of you will object that you’d never do that. But here’s the thing- women don’t know that you won’t until they take… Read more »
I cannot personally relate to the issue and perhaps I am simply not attractive enough to be asked to smile. But I see here the cries for empathy and for men to just accept the feelings of women and I do understand that, but I see a lot of women reaching a conclusion here without employing any empathy of their own. Another possibility along the same lines but different conclusion is that in most societies emotional men are frowned upon by men AND women and thus they often don’t have the same emotional intelligence and ‘instinctive’ empathy that women have… Read more »
I’ve had men jokingly command me to smile before. They usually aren’t the kind who show a great deal of respect, and it makes me feel embarrassed for them. I usually ignore them.
You could have said ‘I’ll pay full fare thank you’.
What if the driver was implying it would cost extra if she did not smile? How can you know what this guy was thinking? Of what he might do if she gave him push back? Evan as slight as you suggest? This is the blind spot that most men simply can’t comprehend without some parallel experience in their own lives.
In other words, men get full credit for aggression that never happened, except as a threat in the minds of the women who interact with them. Should we expect women to act as adults and tell a guy politely he’s overstepping a boundary (she could have easily said: “does this line work on all the women in your cab?” And when he mentioned his military background she could have said:”well a big strong guy like you certainly won’t be offended by a little silence while I work”). This is about men’s behavior, but it is also about women handing men… Read more »
Interesting John,
In a world where violence toward women (and men) is rampant, you make a comment like the one above? JUST EXACTLY HOW does a women, judging a stranger, determine if her words of push back will result in cooperation or violence? The fear women have is well founded. In fact, your comments and tone here are a little scary. But you don’t care do you? No, you don’t.
(to smile or not to smile , male or female) , nobody should be expected to smile or shamed into it , just because somebody else thinks they should period, the point of the article is something the majority of feminist and most MRA’s can agree on, as long as it goes both ways, meaning as man I have every right not to smile at a waiter , cashier , basically any female who’s a stranger period regardless of whether she’s friendly or kind to you ( it reduces the chances of false accusations of anything for men too) it… Read more »
I just smile when it’s said to me. I don’t think of it in a way to control my emotions, but an attempt to cheer me up. Obviously reading these comments I grew up in a totally different country and so did many of my female friends…
“the point of the article is something the majority of feminist and most MRA’s can agree on, as long as it goes both ways” The thing is that I would assume that for the most part women are not asking men. So, this article is correct that this is largely a critique upon male behavior. The problem is there are other versions of this that are uniquely female upon male behavior: like lifting something heavy. There isn’t *ZERO* coercion of mens actions from women, simply because it takes a different form. This reminds me of a poster on youtube who… Read more »
@John Gottman D, oh yes , women do ask men to smile and be more friendly though, although I fully understand that there’s slight variation between the sexes , nevertheless the point still stands , smiling is the least thing to mention for either sexes , it is way in an office settings there’s this very cautious attitude in dealing with women that I and my male co-workers usually adhere to religiously as a matter of fact its way most of us guys at least in programing/codes/software, do not associate with the female co-workers or join each other to socialize… Read more »
A cafeteria worker at my school used to say that to me when I approached in the chow line… I heard another guy griping about the worker’s inappropriate questions about his sex life… When I complained about his inappropriate behavior he yelled at me the next time he saw me to the wide-eyed horror of his co-worker…. He was training at some elite culinary school but apparently missed the lessons on courtesy….
Selina, you may just have gotten to the root of most issues i’ve observed in western culture today, that of everybody always projecting their fears and desires on everybody else, all the time, and quite frankly at 58 years old, i’ve grown weary of it. I can’t do one thing that makes me happy just doing it without someone somewhere judging me, and by default you, for doing it somehow. If I laugh too loud, wear funky colors, pick one, someone Weill always find a reason to critique. i’m too old, they say, to wear onsite pajamas, or electric blue… Read more »
I was a waitress at a bar/restaurant in my early 20s. I would smile as I approached a table and occasionally while serving drinks or food. There were numerous occasions where men said I should smile. I would smile, but I silently marked them in my head as someone I should stand a little farther from as I served their food. This comment usually meant they were going to try to wrap their arm around my waist as I stood taking their orders or something else. Out of necessity, I became quite proficient at projecting a ‘don’t touch me’ face.… Read more »
“Thankfully, there was one rather large intimidating bartender that had been a wrestler in college. Whenever I had problems with a table, I came back to the bar and asked him to take over the table.” In the parlance of the author this sounds like “unpaid protecting labor”. I think it’s interesting that while trying to dress down men for their privilege, a lot of women hear seem to be totally oblivious to their own gender privilege. What would have happened to said bartender if he refused? I’m 47 and I’ve worked in a lot of small businesses and seen… Read more »
I have told people to smile in the past. I do this because smiling has a physiological effect. It actually makes you happy. It’s not for me. If I feel better for it, it’s because I know this. It’s because I’m genuinely concerned with your emotional state. In a world where we are constantly emotionally neutered, please don’t take this small thing from me.
Nathan, why take away a woman’s agency to decide when and where to smile? That’s far more important than your ‘don’t take this small thing away from me’ whinge. Fake smiling doesn’t make someone happy, it makes them more anxious at having to put on an act. It’s not their fault or even their problem that you feel uncomfortable if a person doesn’t smile. You are just projecting your desires or insecurities on them. Why should others have to put up with that?
Nathan, if you really want a girl to smile and be happier, grow a sense of humor and tell a joke. There are plenty of ways to get a woman to smile and be happy without *telling* her to smile. Look y’all, you’ve received feedback about what a lot of women are actually thinking or feeling when you tell them to smile–no, not all of them, but probably more than you think. We’re not “taking away” anything from you. It’s already gone–or more truly, it was never there in the first place. You simply may not yet know how ineffective… Read more »
Well, if *anyone* says something like, “Don’t be sad. Smile. You’re so pretty when you smile,” then it’s offensive. It’s (as LCB so aptly noted) treating women like circus animals and expecting to perform. However, street harassment and old men in rural areas aside, men usually don’t say things like this exactly. So I can’t really give any more blanket statements; it depends on context. (For example, if a colleague tells me to smile in a brainstorming session, I take it as an appropriate criticism of my negative energy. But they are no more likely to tell me to smile… Read more »
I ran into this a lot when I worked for a bank (not with customers, but in a center for online banking). I would walk through the floor on my way to the restroom, another office, the breakroom, etc, and some man would call out, “Smile, girl!” I would normally ignore it. Every now and then I would ask, “why?” and I never received and appropriate response. I couldn’t ever figure out why I should walk through the office smiling like a simp just to make them feel better. I didn’t normally have a scowl on my face.
Why should someone not smiling equal unhappiness? Why must we go around with plastic smiles on our faces all the time? To prove that we are happy people? Just because i don’t smile doesn’t mean I am unhappy. Society’s obsession with facial expressions is going to extremes. Can people really not think that there isn’t a middle between smiling and frowning?
My face is neutral and slightly male version of bitchy face when resting, I’ve had people tell me to smile because of it. People are use to smiles as the neutral face and some peoples faces rest in a state that looks bitchy/angry, which is uncomfortable for a reason – It’s often the start of a dangerous person’s emotions. A person who looks at you and looks annoyed is more risky than someone smiling genuinely, it’s basic instincts in all of us and why babies prefer people that smile, why staring gets people creeped out, etc.
If someone isn’t smiling and looks dangerous, why go up to to them and request for them to smile? Let’s use some logic here, most of those people who apparently look dangerous and are not smiling want to be left alone, so leave them alone. How is that difficult to do? Don’t take responsibility for a strangers apparent happiness because chances are, they don’t want you to. It’s not up to you, why butt in if they show themselves unwilling? As for your comment on ‘prove to me he is forcing her to smile’ and ‘they don’t say smile or… Read more »
The word dangerous was your word, not mine. I used them in my reply. Where are you from? I’m from England. Did you think I was from Australia? Like I said, her agency is reduced because she has been raised to be polite and if she takes up her own agency, she is considered a rude bitch which happens everywhere. ‘A common stereotype here is for men to not bother arguing with their gf, that “women are always right”, coupled with the “happy wife, happy life” and plethora of other things, does this “force in some way” men to not… Read more »
As a man with what my teen daughter calls “resting bitch face” I’ve had people ask, cajole and outright demand that I smile since I was about 12………As my face “Hardened” as I’ve aged, the amount of people who ask has dropped off as I’ve gotten older, mostly because fear at the possible unpleasantness of reaction. My daughter finds hilarious the first reaction of her friends and classmates to my appearance …… intimidated is about normal. They still end up hanging at our home and eating my cooking…….rather often…….although feeding extra teens does add to expenses.
I imagine that men are sick of having fingers shaken at them for not handling someone’s emotions—their own or someone else’s—appropriately. Also, I agree that society sends men mixed—no, downright *conflicting*—signals about how much emotion they’re supposed to show, how they’re supposed to show it, when, etc. So I understand where some of these comments might be coming from. However, I don’t think anyone is saying that you’re killing angel puppies every time that you tell a woman to smile. Rather, in the case that your intentions are indeed to make that woman happy, simply telling her to smile is… Read more »
One of the best points of the argument, Michelle. Who is to blame for women being overly polite that leads to this situation in the first place? It’s all about society expectations and how girls are socialised and why so many women are labelled as bitches just because they aren’t polite enough to men who harass them but are still forced to be polite when they don’t want to be
Archy, first of all, for the (rough) statistics you cite to be relevant to stories such as Sabrina’s, you have to exclude abuse and murder by intimate partners, which comprise the *vast* majority of abuse and murders by females. Your other statistics also seem a little… off. For the record: The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1997) stated that 91% of United States people whose rape accusations resulted in convictions against the accused were female and 9% were male. It also stated that 99% of the people convicted of and imprisoned in response to rape accusations were male, with only… Read more »
If you approach random attractive women on the street and say, “Smile beautiful,” then yeah, my creep radar would go off and I would cast you as a potential predator. However, if you aren’t the type to do this, then I probably wouldn’t. Sorry if that wasn’t clear from my previous post. And I know “profiling” is a dirty word; however, people really can’t help it, and I’m comfortable enough with my beliefs to admit that I do profile, but it is much more context-dependent than you may think. When I lived in the West Village in New York, dirty… Read more »
Lots of good points–thanks:)
Thanks for this essay. You’ve helped me identify something that’s bothered me for years about my father-in-law. He flirts with waitresses, and it’s kind of a family joke, because he’s “harmless”–meaning he doesn’t have any overt sexual intent (he’s happily married). This is the problem: “And while they usually deny any sexual component to their actions, I can’t help but notice how much more often it happens to women that these guys find attractive. If the frequency and tone of your compliments correlates with how attractive you think someone is, you don’t get to pretend that there’s nothing sexual about… Read more »
I have a naturally serious face maybe my default face even looks bitchy. I’m so sick of men telling me to smile or the most detested phrase “you’d look prettier if you smile” I laugh when something is funny and I smile when it’s my natural reaction to something. I’m not going to walk around with an inane grin on my face for the pleasure of complete strangers. How about we all mind our own business and refrain from commenting on ANY aspect of another persons physical appearance, unless we genuinely believe them to be in some sort of distress… Read more »
*Hred drops mic to standing ovation and struts off stage … NOT smiling* lmao!! You go girl!
So is it different when a woman asks this of a man? I just have to say that as a guy with that so-called ‘bitchy resting face,’ plenty of women have told me to smile. Just at the liquor store two days ago the woman ringing me up said, “Smile, you’re about to drink beer” and gave me a nice little encouraging smile. I didn’t feel like anyone was requiring “emotional labor” of me. I didn’t feel controlled. I didn’t even feel like she was hitting on me. It was simply a nice gesture to brighten my day. And while… Read more »
Angryrestingface, maybe because you as a man have never been socialised into this kind of thing as threatening or controlling behaviour like women have been. So you didn’t feel these things when a woman told you to smile. Being told to smile does not make many (to maybe even most) women’s days happier, it can even make them resentful or angry that some guy just can’t leave them alone to walk down the street or buy a coffee. To me, it’s a mild form of harassment, it’s somebody inserting their person in your space that you don’t need or want.… Read more »
They don’t see that trying to make someone smile is an attempt to control her. Maybe my personal neurotic states are different from everybody else’s, but if there are more people like me out there, it may be that in some cases the situation is slightly more difficult: I believe that in some cases men in that scenario do not attempt to control her, but rather a component of their own mind. To put it simple: If you have been brought up to believe a woman’s well-being (emotional and otherwise) is your responsibility, seeing a woman in a bad mood… Read more »
This article is a little disturbing on a few levels. Firstly I like it when people smile, especially when they have that deep heartfelt happiness that lights up their whole face, and this is irrigardless of whether they are male or female. I really love it if I have done something stupid or funny to have someone break out in a smile like this. A smile like that makes my day. But not once ever have I asked someone to smile just to see them smile, that just sounds wrong, and I can’t recall seeing anyone ever ask a woman… Read more »
The bottom line is that women are not circus animals who should be expected to perform when told to “smile.”
Yes. Thank you.
right!!!
Luke,
It remarkable to me how utterly tone deaf your response to this article is. If you have never asked anyone to smile, then good for you. No one is asking you not to like smiles. That’s patently absurd. But the comments of women here CLEARLY indicate that this is an ongoing issue. Step aside and let their voices be heard.
Is this a city thing? I’ve had women say smile to me and seen others do it without issue, but this is a small town.
Thanks Mark.
Tone deaf is probably right. I’m rather interested about this now so I will be asking some of my female friends if this is an issue over the next few weeks. I can hand on my heart say I have never come across this before. I really don’t know if it is just my ignorance or a cultural difference between the US and Oz
I’m starting to think the way it’s handled in Australia is different to the U.S. So far the Aussie women I’ve asked don’t get bothered by it. Maybe harassment is more common in the U.S?
To Luke … I’m now working in an alternative school where the students are really troubled. Keep in mind that I started my position at the beginning of November. There is one young lady (student) who occasionally catches my eye and hers mine while in my office. One day while passing the door of the classroom she was in where students that are struggling, I stopped at the door way and looked at her, I didn’t say anything when she looked up at me, I just smiled. As hard as she tried not to, she cracked a big smile. I… Read more »
Ever wonder if we’re creating a society so emotionally fragmented that people are afraid to say smile to each other for fear of offending someone? The simple word smile, shouldn’t be offensive. The ladies are describing a culture that raises them to be polite and put on fake emotions to please others, I think that sounds like the real problem. Let’s attack that culture whilst still encouraging people to smile and be friendly on the streets. I’m all for stopping guys harassing people, and girls too. People that follow, people that intrude, they need to check themselves. But this word… Read more »
To Archy and Tom. I wasn’t really clear with that, but the sort of encounters I’ve had/seen with this, those people weren’t really trying to be empathetic, more like these people were doing a civic duty to make sure everyone was at least looking happy. And yes a smile and genuine concern on the person asking you to cheer up would probably work a whole lot better.
Hi Charlie , thank you 🙂
This was interesting read.
Now I wait for some comments from the MRA……
From what I have seen, when women say they want an emotional man, they mean that they want an emotionally *available* man. A man who empathisizes and will guide her through emotional turbulence. Not a man who will actually need emotional nurturance. From what I have seen most women shun emotionally expressive men, particularly men who need emotional nurturance. Look to Hugo’s article on jezebel about what a “downer” emotionally needy men are, to “F yeah”!s from the faithful followers. In other words, men need to be more like women, but not EXACTLY like women. Men are getting criticezed BOTH… Read more »
yes, it is a two way street. Both sides need to empathise with each other and support each other emotionally. No woman, or man, wants a partner who is dependent on them to get by emotionally, neither do they want a partner who is distant and lacking empathy. I agree the pain of the story above is exaggerated (of course she is not complying because she actually thinks she’ll be denied entry onto the bus, she’ll comply because she doesn’t want to be rude or start a big discussion with a stranger). However, I do think he has a point… Read more »
Hi Rob, I’m the Sabrina from the post above. It was an airport car service, and I was already in the locked car, alone except for the driver, traveling out of state, and in an area (the freeway) where I couldn’t simply exit the vehicle. The driver also made it clear to me over the course of this trip that he was former military with a specialty in interrogations, so I “shouldn’t try lying to him.” This was also supposed to be a joke. The driver was the owner; I couldn’t report him to his company. He was also a… Read more »
John D – your comments about women not being able to deal with emotionally vulnerable men ring true. BUT as a women who has had men who are strangers say this to me COUNTLESS times over the years (usually older men) Depending on my mood I have ignored, replied with ‘f*ck off mate’ or a few times said ‘why????’. They always seem to be startled that I am annoyed at this. Seriously, is this just another chat up line? I would never dream of going up to a strange (male) and say ‘cheer up love it will never happen’. What… Read more »
You’re overall approach is very combative. I think most times it’s meant to be a polite suggestion, and in the suggestion it is meant to cheer a person up. Everytime I heard it said, or had it said to me it was just cute thing to say without any obligations.
Archy,
Your perception of this from a male standpoint is not the issue here. Of course you are comfortable with it. The question is do you care about how women feel? Plain and simple. If women say being asked to smile makes them uncomfortable IN LARGE NUMBERS, do you act based on their requests or your opinion?
Thank you Mark. You get it where obviously others clearly don’t. I’m reading the comments scratching my head wondering why it’s so hard. After coming out of a 12 year marriage with a very controlling man, yes!! being told to smile IS telling me how to look, how to feel so that I appear more PLEASING to HIM. Well, you know that? Maybe I don’t want to [expletive] smile, ya know? I wasn’t put here on this planet to smile so that I look more approachable, more “feminine”, more demure to lecherous, harassing, lascivious car drivers. Piss off. For all… Read more »
She is implying that based on her mood she tells guys to fuckoff who say smile. That is combative. The guy who threatened her, she can tell him to fuckoff all day but if a guy simply says smile and is told to fuckoff, that is combative. I don’t go around telling people that bug me to fuckoff because it’s rude and combative. I tell people that harass me to fuckoff, she has that right too. “Polite suggestion? Who said she needed cheering up and where is it right or his business to interfere?” Who says I need a discussion… Read more »
It’s not combative, it’s defensive. Don’t tell me what to do unless you’re my boss.
It’s not your business if I smile or not. If you want me to smile, how about instead smiling at me or saying something kind or funny in a respectful manner?
Otherwise, my smile isn’t your business.
“Don’t say hi, how are you to me, you’re not the boss of me, you don’t get to force me to talk to you. See how this logic swings?” Archy, it doesn’t seem like you understand what the article and most of these comments are about, and I’m honestly happy for you. Re: small towns vs. cities: I grew up in suburban Kansas and then lived in Boston, NYC, and Chicago, and I can say that, yes, at least in my experience, this is a bigger problem in cities. (Anyone else care to weigh in here?) Granted, I’ve also encountered… Read more »
(Replying to Archy) Yeah, your comments on population density totally make sense. I’m not sure whether or not there are any more crazy people in NYC than anywhere else, but there are crazy people in your face all the time. My half-mile walk to work every day was sort of a study in the human condition:) Also, there are very, very conservative regions (usually rural) in the US where the density of men who think it’s their right to control women is pretty high. I think the prominence of relatively extreme religious groups in the rural US has something to… Read more »
Archy. To offer a smile to a stranger is one thing.. a simple gesture. But to suggest or demand one from a stranger is quite another. In doing the latter, you are intruding into their emotional state with no understanding of what has transpired before thiat moment. The point is they may be handling a lot of issues or tasks in their mind and do not have the emotional energy to respond in the way you expect from them. Another point is that for women, there is always the fear that the request for a smile from a male stranger… Read more »