"You're so pretty when you smile"

Posted on October 15, 2004 by Ampersand

Adding to the recent interblog series of posts about women being told to smile, Jenn Lee reprints some of an article she wrote back in 1988.

This entry was posted in Feminism, sexism, etc. Bookmark the permalink.

13 Responses to "You're so pretty when you smile"

  1. Andrew says:
    October 15, 2004 at 6:43 pm

    This whole issue meant nothing to me at all until I read the posts on it over the past couple of weeks. I suppose it’s because I would never even consider telling a total stranger to smile, and because the only people who tell men to smile are their family ( in my experience anyway).

  2. Eileen says:
    October 16, 2004 at 4:09 pm

    When I was younger, thinner, and prettier, I got the smile thing a lot. It annoyed me then, and I didn’t know why. I am not a smiley person, my face is not made for a big toothy grin. Sometimes even if I am smiling, people don’t know it. Usually, as you say, it was a complete stranger saying it to me. I got to the point where I told them it was against my religion.

  3. Echidne says:
    October 17, 2004 at 6:12 am

    This is an American thing. I grew up in Europe and women were not expected to smile any more than men. But when I came to the States I met so many falsely smiling women that I started wondering about the reasons for that. Does it have something to do with the same idea as the one that made Southern Baptists ask women to ‘gracefully’ submit to their husbands? It’s more fun when the submission is voluntary and cheerful?

  4. Andrew says:
    October 17, 2004 at 7:15 am

    This is an American thing. I grew up in Europe and women were not expected to smile any more than men

    Ah, that’ll be why it’s not familiar then.

  5. mythago says:
    October 17, 2004 at 9:41 am

    I dunno, Echidne; maybe it’s that European women are more expected to put up with ogling and comments, so the “Smile!” is superfluous?

  6. Catherine Redfern says:
    October 18, 2004 at 5:19 am

    I’m English, always lived in England, and I’ve had this comment plenty of times from strangers. It definitely happens here too.

  7. Echidne says:
    October 18, 2004 at 7:15 pm

    I should have said that it’s not something I came across where I grew up in Europe. Maybe it’s an Anglo-American thing?

  8. mythago says:
    October 18, 2004 at 9:01 pm

    American isn’t *that* English.

  9. Andrew says:
    October 19, 2004 at 4:42 am

    But is England that American?

  10. Crys T says:
    October 22, 2004 at 7:37 am

    A couple of things: actually, Andrew, I think England is far more American than it wants to admit, as is the rest of Britain.

    Also, I do realise that the myth of European, particularly South European, countries’ being generally more sexist is one that has had a lot of propaganda over the years, but it isn’t actually true.

    I lived for years and years in Ohio, and can honestly say that the levels of “ogling” and unwanted comments going on there was roughly the same as what I saw/experienced after moving back to Spain. The difference between the 2 places was much more that in Spain, the comments tend to be more sexual come-ons while in the US, they’re sexual in a more hostile, threatening way. And please let me make absolutely clear that both types are very unwanted and angering.

    In Britain, it is different, but I think that’s due to a) my being older and b) living in Wales. In London, I’ve got a lot of crap from men, certainly.

  11. Kenna says:
    August 18, 2012 at 8:47 am

    Thankfully, women in Europe aren’t expected to smile at strangers or for completely no reason. I’m not a very smiley person to begin with, and I work in customer service. I try to be friendly and professional without smiling like a moron. I do not stand around grinning at people. If I smile then it will be a natural smile. In some countries, it’s considered a sign of stupidity to smile a lot, while in other countries, one simply does not smile at total strangers.

  12. Nancy Lebovitz says:
    August 18, 2012 at 10:24 am

    I’ve only seen one person who said they’d changed their behavior as a result of the “Smile!” discussions. It was a mother who realized that she’d been doing it to her children, and it was inappropriate.

    I found that if someone told me to smile and I snapped at them and I saw their face fall, it cheered me up immediately.

    I was a little unnerved that hurting someone’s feelings could feel that good, but weren’t they getting what they wanted?

Comments are closed.