Submitted 2 days ago by magnetosphere@fedia.io to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
https://fedia.io/m/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world/t/1619714
Just about everyone looks better when they smile. It’s true regardless of gender. I don’t see where sexism enters the equation.
I feel pretty oblivious. What am I missing?
Because men are “allowed” to look however they want, grouchy, happy or ‘keep the fuck away from me’. If a women does it she’s got “resting bitch face” or gets told to smile. It’s just a subtle way of saying “you don’t look right here let me change you”. If you kept saying it to guys they’d tell you to fuck off.
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.
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?
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.)
I can tell you 100 stories of telling a man to eat more so that they wouldn’t be so skinny.
Because it’s sexist to ask me to look better for you
Fuck the downvotes. This is no stupid questions!
Its considered rude towards women. Because a lot of men just say it to women to look more attractive or to just looke more nice as if women bare the responsibility to be nice to men or always be attractive otherwise they wont be considered women at all. I think it became like because many men just say it a lot (or many boomers dont know).
It’s sexist because you wouldn’t risk asking a man to smile. It’s disrespectful because you don’t get to control another person’s facial expressions. It’s intrusive because you disrupt another person’s thoughts with your selfishness. You aren’t the centre of the world. Other people get to have their own feelings and since women are people that includes them.
It’s a risk telling a man to smile?
Oh yeah.
Honestly, it’s risky with women too, just not as risky.
I know women that will pull a knife on you for giving them an order like that. And I know a shit ton of men that will go straight to punching that kind of fool in the face. Women aren’t as likely to get violent, but when they do, they don’t fuck around because it’s usually men saying that kind of condescending shit.
But, yeah, I’ve seen fights started over even less rude things. Some guys, you don’t give an order to, period, no matter how nice you do it, or how you intend it.
Tbh, I’m not going to respond well to it, though I’ll give a person the chance to GTFO before I step to violence. It’s an option if they don’t fuck off though.
It’s not women’s job to be attractive.
They aren’t there for your viewing pleasure.
They’re not for you; they’re not a public amenity.
You have no more right to expect them to smile in order to make your surroundings more aesthetic than you have a right to expect them to get their tits out for you to gawp at.
Ah I see!
So you’re essentially saying that instead of asking women to smile, I should also ask them to get their tits out for me to gawp at!
Thank you :)
I mean we have countless Reddit stories where someone's dog died that day, and while groceries shopping someone tells them "hey, a beautiful girl like you should smile".
That's just an a**hole move.
Why is how good a woman looks to you more important than her own feelings?
It’s considered rude.
As a girl, my job isn’t to look attractive to guys. I smile when I feel like it, which happens a lot because I’m happy, but I’d still consider it rude if anyone told me to smile like it was an order. If you’re a guy and you wouldn’t tell other guys to smile in the same context, then that falls under discrimination based on sex.
/c/NoStupidQuestions
Asks a stupid question
-22
Wow, you really played yourself didn’t you, OP?
Some people on Lemmy act all high and mighty while considering themselves as “different” from all the regular social media normies owned by corpos. But they’re still the same here as well. Just a different coat of paint. And I’m not even just referring to this post or even this community or instance. They are all just as retarded.
It’s the same as when people on Reddit act superior and different, because they don’t have their real names on the account compared to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, ext.
You know the “It’s not the same social media, we are different” that is popular both here and there and most other places to be honest.
It’s not sexist, it’s threatening.
While you may mean well, the vast majority of times a woman is complemented by an acquaintance or stranger, it’s because that person is trying to hit on the woman.
You might think “shouldn’t that be flattering?” No, it really isn’t. Every single woman I know has countless stories about how they have been harassed by desperate men trying to get into their pants. If you could barely walk into a public place without random strangers harassing you, you’d be soured on the idea too. To further compound the problem, men are on average bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than women.
So as an example, I was out with my girlfriend once, walking down a crowded street. There was a group of people we had to walk around so we went single file. In less than 30 seconds, she already had some shitty man cat calling her with loaded compliments. I shoved some people aside to make sure I was standing next to her again and he shut up immediately. This is just a fact of life for most women.
Men may not understand this because they only very rarely receive random compliments, but it hits very different as a woman.
There is an appropriate time to compliment women, and it’s after you have already built up a trusting friendship. Besides, a compliment means more coming from a friend than a stranger.
I think it’s because they usually mean “Shut up, I don’t care what you’re thinking about, just be pretty.”
The problem lies in wanting women to look better in the first place.
Not an issue for men?
Not as much as “needing to toughen up”.
This was posted 4 times, you may want to remove the duplicates.
I would agree that people look better when they smile, but I think that it is considered sexist because women are asked to smile where men are not, in similar situations. I believe that women feel it is controlling, and since it’s requested/required of women more often then men, their perspective is that it is sexist.
Would you feel okay with a woman asking you to flex? I would, but if it became something that happened on a regular basis, I think it would quickly become annoying to me.
Disclaimer: am man, as my username implies.
apparently everything. Why do women need to “look better”?
In general it’s asking another person to change their appearance to suit your preferences rather than just respecting whatever mood they’re in or how their naturally resting face just looks. Forcing a smile sucks. It takes some amount of conscious effort to maintain a forced smile and smiling does engage quite a few muscles in the face, about 43 different muscles to make a smile.
Combine all of that with the history of women very much not having any kind of power in our society, and it takes on a more sinister tone when directed at women, hinting at the idea of someone’s only valuable because they have a pretty face and it should be pretty all the time.
I initially didn’t understand the context of the question as I assumed you meant when taking a photo.
I’ve never been the sort of person to ask or insist anyone to display a particular expression. But…
At times I’ve encountered friends, both male and female, that were struggling in life and crying.
Sometimes I would smile at them and say “Hey, you’re leaking again”
I almost always got them to lift their spirits and smile, with a bit of a lighthearted chuckle even.
Though not a moment I’d take a photo of, out of respect, it still reminds me how easy it can be to get a friend to smile.
It is generally uncouth to tell anyone how to feel regardless of gender. Compel the person to feel through your own words and actions. If you fail to achieve the desired results, change your tact.
Men are not asked that, men were mostly not in customer service jobs that needed to look nice. Men were not attacked for leading men along by smiling at them, after they were told to do so.
I think you should ask men to smile more (like at the grocery store or gym) and see how it goes. 😉
I don’t think it’s sexist. It’s just rude, no matter who you’re asking. I’d equate it to someone asking me to dress differently as if it’s my job to please them.
Do you have an example?
The only time I can imagine someone asking someone else to smile is when taking photos.
Why do you feel the need to make “suggestions” about how women could look better? Or in other words, why would be of your concern if somebody is or isn’t smiling and looking good for you?
You’ll notice this behavior often happens with women on the receiving end of the “friendly suggestion” but rarely does it happen with men.
This, I think, is a stupid question.
Something I watched in my women empowerment group I go too on YouTube called “miss representation”
It’s a old somewhat interesting documentary but may help understand.
sith@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
I don’t know if it’s sexist but it sure as hell is annoying. Don’t tell people to smile if you don’t have a very good reason.