Smile Time

Goddamn motherfucking bastard. Possibly the best line in the best chapter of Amanda Marcotte's It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments--Being Told to Smile by Strangers.

In my case, it isn't limited to just strangers. I get told to smile constantly from the man who calls me "Sammy Girl" at work. While there is a certain amount of misogyny in this practice, I don't think he's being purposely malicious--he was just conditioned to think that women like to be told to smile.

Newsflash: We don't.

According to Marcotte, the premise behind the "Smile!" brigade is to "remind a woman that she shouldn't forget [that] her first duty to the world is to provide a vacant but pleasing smile to everyone she encouners." While I don't necessarily disagree with her assertion, I believe there's a deeper level of socialized misogyny behind this frown-upside-down movement which actually ties in with more serious issues of verbal/sexual harassment. When you really boil down to why men (and I suppose in some instances, women) think they have some sort of duty to tell women to smile or think they have a right to cat-call or scream CUNT out of motor vehicles, it's because women are second-class citizens. Possibly stemming from Victorian era gender divisions where men were a part of the public sphere and women the domestic, women have less of a right to move freely through public space. Whether it's a (seemingly) benign "Smile!" or an aggressive slur (which, you'll notice, are female, because female=negative), these verbal cues remind women that they don't carry the same social merit that men do.

Last summer, I was walking down North Main on my way to the gym. A car drove past me and a man leaned out the window and cat called, and I called him a mutherfuck under my breath. As much as I hate to admit it, the first thing I thought about was my clothing--I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that even my grandmother would consider conservative. Huzzah, another instance in which my feminist consciousness fails me and I revert back to the nineteen years of whatdidYOUdowrong socialization. Of course, the problem was not what I was wearing, regardless if I were to hypothetically to ever wear booty shorts and anything that didn't go at least 3/4 past my shoulders. The problem is some jackass who thinks it's okay (and possibly even flattering, yuck) to remind me that I am less than he. All the power was taken from me in that situation, because regardless if I were to ignore it, scream YOUFUCKINGASSHOLE back or go the passive-aggressive route, his attitudes would remain fundamentally unchanged.

If I want to smile, I will smile. If I want to walk with my trademark neutral expression that I've been told looks like I'm pissed off or aloof, I will walk in all my neutral-pissed off-aloof glory. There's little I can do to prevent stupid assholes from shouting things from car windows, but I can begin to stand up for myself and womenkind at work by (politely and demurely) calling out sexist behaviors. When I'm asked if I'm happy or grumpy, I'll ask if I have more than just two mood options. When asked (this happens continually, for some reason) if I drank over the weekend, I'll half-smile and not even dignify an answer. Ditto for the weight-loss questions.

I like to smile. In fact, I love smiling. But only on the condition that it is a genuine smile. I will not smile for the sake of vacancy and I will not be an emotional dichotomy.

In effect, I will be a person.