#SmileForJoe
Ah yes, this again.
Melissa Block at NPR says Think Twice Before Telling A Woman To Smile.
After the primaries last Tuesday a cable news guy tweeted at Hillary Clinton: “Smile. You just had a big night.”
Suffice to say, women – were not amused.
“Said no one to a man, ever” tweeted one.
Another offered: “Women LOVE it when you say this.”
And on it went, until comedian Samantha Bee was prompted to launch the hashtag “Smile for Joe,” thereby prompting a slew of women to post selfies as they make like Grumpy Cat: frowning, grimacing, and scowling.
The cable news guy said predictable “lighten up ladies!” type of thing – so why is this so annoying?
Because even women who don’t happen to be running for the highest office in the land are all too familiar with men telling them — not asking them, telling them — to smile.
Maybe it starts with well-intentioned grandparents when you’re a kid. And then graduates to not-so well-intentioned, unsolicited sidewalk advice when you’re older.
And to vitally necessary phrases like “bitchy resting face” because we all know women’s faces are public property at all times.
This kerfuffle over women and smiling? it’s not new territory, though it IS new for a presidential campaign. Back in 1970, the feminist writer Shulamith Firestone proposed her “dream action” for the women’s liberation movement: she called for “a smile boycott” in which, she wrote, “all women would instantly abandon their ‘pleasing’ smiles — henceforth smiling only when something pleased THEM.”
But it didn’t work, and the orders to smile have not stopped. Global warming will have wiped out all mammalian life before that happens.
Of course, a woman’s appearance is public property. And of course, women are supposed to take this attention as a compliment. One thing that I found very off-putting was when, during the last Canadian election, Tom Mulcair (leader of the New Democratic Party, which is, for the most part, rather progressively feminist) commented on Green Party leader Elizabeth May’s exclusion from the party leaders debate. He said that he thought she should have been included, and that having her there “brightens up the room”. Blech.
I have had ‘smile’ requests directed toward me. Just once or twice, and of course they were from aggressive panhandlers.
It’s more than patronizing, it is an exertion of control and power. A gratuitous hostile act toward women.
As a mid-40s man, I’ve been told once in my life to smile by a stranger. It was a panhandler whose schtick was to try to get people to smile, on the premise that people who did so would be more likely to be agreeable to parting with pocket change. He was very even-handed in his treatment of men and women (and, unlike some panhandlers, always maintained distance, letting people who decided to give him money close the gap first).
But yeah, other than that, I can go around looking grumpy, depressed or downright angry and no one ever seems to worry about the scowl on my face.