Please stop acting like sexist jerks.
Now, before you protest that telling women to smile isn’t sexist, stop and think back to the last time you saw a man you’d never met and said any of the following to him:
- Why so down? Smile!
- Life’s too short! Smile while you can!
- You need to smile more.1
- You’d be hotter if you were smiling.
- A handsome guy like you shouldn’t look so sad.
A real smile is a spontaneous physical expression of an emotion. Granted, there are some people who try to avoid expressing even the “good” emotions, but most people are pretty comfortable with spontaneous displays of happiness, joy, gratitude, and so on. Further, studies have also shown that inflicting “positive thinking”.
When you tell someone who is not smiling that they should be smiling, you are essentially saying one (or more) of the following:
- You should be having different emotions than you are having
- You should feign an emotion you are not having
- You should do something with your body because I think you should
- My desire to see you smiling is more important than whatever you might be feeling or thinking
(via feminisminapapercup)
This is a brilliant highlight of a brilliant piece. Click through to read the whole thing, it’s worth it.
Old men at McDonald’s, read this. There was a reason I didn’t bring the coffee out to your table like the other girls....
Þegar fólk segir mér að brosa, langar mig langoftast að segja því að halda kjafti. Geri það samt ekki. Yfirmaður minn...
Dear ANYONE—don’t do this. I usually get it from my older (female) coworkers, in the “you’re so pretty” type context....