Comment on Why is it considered sexist to ask women to smile?
jbrains@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Tell us a story of the last time you witnessed someone telling a man to smile because he would look so much better if he did.
Well people have frequently mistaken me for a woman most of my life and thats happened to me a few times. Its intrusive and irritating to be told I should look a certain way, especially by a stranger and I would consider it rude to say to anyone unsolicited.
Thats not to say its not worse for women having to deal with the objectification layer, too.
I can tell you 100 stories of telling a man to eat more so that they wouldn’t be so skinny.
People have told me, it’s how I’ve seen friends and family go trough dating profiles, and weirdly enough I once saw a researcher use a lot of tech and data just to conclude the journalist should smile more
I’m enjoying being told about these counterexamples, as I’m seeing even more clearly how this attitude is embedded in our shared culture.
So far, all the specific contexts in which men are being told to smile is one in which others feel entitled to the man attempting to impress them. In contexts such as dating or performing on video or working in retail, this doesn’t particularly surprise me.
I suppose another reasonable context is one in which the people asking you to smile are genuinely worried about your emotional state and want you to seem happier. By chance is it typically like that for you? (Let’s set aside for now the complex matter of whether they actually want you to feel better or they merely want to control your behavior or feel less uncomfortable themselves.)
That has happened, yes. Not as often anymore though, but to be fair, I already smile a lot nowadays
Nobody asked Luigi to smile, he just did…
Gigachad Sigma Grindset 😎
I agree with the sentiment but I, a man, actually get told to smile more weirdly often working retail.
And they say it’s because “you’re prettier when you smile” or something like that?
That’s one exception that doesn’t surprise me. Do you have any sense how often they are doing this with intentional irony compared with genuine obliviousness?
It’s really only creepy old dudes I get it from. It seems pretty genuine most of the time. These comments are more frequent and more egregious with my women coworkers, though, as one might expect.
How interesting! That makes it even less surprising.
Sidhean@lemmy.world 8 months ago
An older trucker told me (a man (at the time)) that I’d look better if i did. Not “cuter” or “prettier” but it felt slimy, still. I have one example of that and hecking dozens of examples of these old fucks hitting on female cashiers. Straight up inviting a young woman into the shower with regularity. Anyway,
yeah, this is why its sexist: Men want women to make their dick hard (in a manner of speaking).