Gettyimages.com/Portrait of a serious woman with dreadlocks crossing her arms
I don’t think there is anything a complete stranger—a male stranger—can say to me on the street that angers me the way, “Smile more!” does. Or, “Why aren’t you smiling?” or “You’re prettier when you smile.” The men who say this do not know how inherently sexist it is to approach a random woman on the street who they do not know and tell her to smile. In fact, the men who do this actually think they’re the ones who respect women—right, because you’re telling us how we should feel or at least how we should appear to feel. How respectful. I almost have more respect for men who just make offensive cat calls than the men who tell me to, “Smile, sweetheart!” At least the former don’t try to hide their gross sexism. Men: here is why you have to stop telling women to “Smile more.”
Do you just walk around smiling?
So um, let me ask you something men: do you just walk around in your day, standing at a bus stop, waiting in line to buy gum, smiling? Do you do all of your activities with a big grin on your face like a game show host? No. Because you’d look like a psychopath. Think about that for one second before telling a woman, who is trying to get from point A to point B, to “Smile more.”
