Has anyone else noticed that it is not just grown men who feel that they have the right to issue commands to women, but also teenage boys? I have noticed that they also like to call me ‘love’ and ‘bab’, and seem not to notice that I am twice their age and infinitely more wise and knowing than they are. Of course if you tell someone not to address you as ‘love’ or ’sweetheart’, it’s all the bloody feminists overreacting, where’s the harm and can’t they take a joke…

Ok, that was a little over the top but it is irritating having people tell you what to do. “Cheer up love!” I’ve had too (because of my Naturally Sulky Face Syndrome (NSFS)), which is annoying if I’m quite cheery already. They don’t know anything about me. How dare they make assumptions about me and how I’m feeling?

Leo, imagine regularly being harassed to “Smile!” by gay men twice your size. Imagine how much fun this would be.

Anyways, yes, thank you, Cwastg.

Now, I know for a fact that I haven’t done the “Smile” thing in years, so please don’t flame me for copping to it. Having read the preceding take on that behavior, I have no intention of engaging in it again, lest I have the unintended effect of making someone unhappy/uncomfortable/etc (which is the exact opposite of what I would want). I’m fairly new to the ideas of global/systemic misogyny and male privilege, but even I recognize that this behavior is undoubtedly the product of the same sort of misogynistic clap-trap that women have to put up with all the time. That being said, as someone who has at one time or another engaged in this much-detested behavior, I thought it might be worthwhile to add my perspective regarding the thoughts, feelings, and intentions that I historically associated with it. I certainly can’t speak for all (or even most) men, but for me the whole “Smile” business was never about trying to command or control another person to make my (or some other hypothetical man’s) day better. It was about helping the person I was speaking to. I’d see a woman who looked troubled or unhappy, and in the spirit of the “Smile. You’ll feel better” school of thought, walk up to her, smile warmly, and suggest that doing the same might make her feel better. I realize now that *how* I said it was probably crucial and, admittedly, this was almost entirely during my younger years (<25), but I can’t recall a single time that approach generated a negative response. In fact, more often than not, their face would light up and they’d thank me for my concern, explain that they were deep in thought, or engage in some other form of verbal exchange. On rare occasions, someone who was really upset would even talk to me about what was bothering them. Regardless, I generally didn’t hang around to overstay my welcome and I never tried to get a date out of it. In my mind, it was just a simple expression of compassion that might help to brighten someone’s day just a little.

If only it were that simple. Because it’s not. Otherwise, why did I tend to do it more with women I found attractive? And why only women in the first place? That, unfortunately, is a good bit more complicated and strongly rooted in my upbringing. From an early age I have been conditioned to dislike seeing women upset. It’s the damsel in distress archetype, the save the princess motif that is sometimes thrust upon young men and made to seem their responsibility. As a result, the sight of an unhappy woman makes me unhappy, and if she happens to be especially pretty, it’s even worse. I probably irritate my wife a bit because of it; she’s a stunningly beautiful woman (IMO) and when she’s upset or overwhelmed I feel positively compelled to help. As any self-respecting feminist will tell you, of course, princesses should be able to take care of themselves, and if they can’t it’s not some man’s job to do it for them. And how dare he presume that he can handle the situation better than she in the first place! Again, complicated. The impulse that will see a “decent guy” or a “proper Southern gentleman” stopping on the side of the road to help a pretty woman with a flat tire has nothing to do with procuring sex or a belief that she can’t do it herself. He’s just following an internal script, a set of ethics if you will, that says that that’s what he’s supposed to do. If she says she’ll take care of it herself and sends him on his way, he’s still managed to discharge his sense of social responsibility by asking. The guys who ARE thinking about sex when they stop generally have no interest in helping you with the tire in the first place, and most modern men are well aware that the average woman is both mentally and physically capable of changing her own flat tire. So why do they offer? Because it’s what they’re “supposed” to do. Even though they’re strangers and (unbeknownst to them) you’re probably uncomfortable because you don’t know them from Adam. I mean, sure, he might just be a nice guy genuinely offering to help, but he could also be some creep who plans to force himself on you as soon as you drop your guard. A quick cost vs. benefit analysis of the possibilities makes the prudent course of action clear: send him packing. And, yet, the script still exists, so the offers still come. And why preferential treatment for more attractive women? Again, not because as a man I expect a date, sex, or whathaveyou, but because that’s part of the script too: beauty is to be treasured and protected. It’s not fair, and it’s probably not right, but like so many other areas of life, how most men treat women has a lot to do with something as tiny as a quirk of genetics. You can take the same person, alter a few physical traits, and get very different results, even in a controlled setting. Which is pretty shitty, because the message that comes across is essentially “We don’t care who you are, just how you look.” That’s not entirely true, and it definitely isn’t fair to men like myself. We do care who you are, we’ve just been programmed since birth to respond very strongly to how you look as well. Some of us are trying to do better, others don’t even realize there’s a problem.

I guess my point in all this is that men are as much a product of their conditioning as anyone, and that their motivations aren’t necessarily as clear-cut or obvious as they may appear at first glance. That’s not to say creeps and assholes don’t exist, or that the whole “save the princess” script isn’t the legacy of a load of misogynistic bullshit that we’re all better off without. They do, and it is. But just because the seed of an idea originated from an objectionable source doesn’t *necessarily* mean that the entirety of it should be discarded. After all, the thing that led me to tell people to smile was innocent and well-intentioned, if somewhat misguided (IMO). And I personally find the male imperative to help women in need quite charming, if a bit quaint; I know for a fact that I would think less of my fellow Southerners if they didn’t at least offer to help a woman in trouble. So there’s good and bad. In my mind, what’s really a shame is that we don’t offer such consideration to our fellow men nearly as often.

Masaki Writes:
November 12th, 2004 at 5:10 am
I am not gonna toot my horn too much but let’s just say that I have a traditionally very popular look all-around, and am a good enough person(ality) that I attract a lot of attention academically, from my male peers and from women.

I can laugh along with you at some over-persistent guy or scary/dirty stranger getting tossed for saying something like “smile!” but I wonder about the cases when it was sincere?

Masaki, we are all so deeply touched that you want us to stop what we are thinking and negate our emotional processes so that we can validate your feelings that you are really attractive and that we are paying attention to you. Because your self-interest is so totally *sincere*

Seriously, no one is this much of an egocentric fool and blogging at feminist sites. Masaki is a group of undergrads in women’s studies trying to understand innate male arrogance. Good work, it really had me going.

My impression is that you look too deep into it. It wasn’t that he thought you had to just look pretty and it was unattractive - he was uncomfortable, because he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to help but didn’t know how, so this is an awkward and rude way of him of trying to help.

If I cry it makes others uncomfortable, makes me uncomfortable too. If someone else cries, especially if I care about them (ie my mom) it makes me uncomfortable too. Besides a hug and talking (with my mom, I’d be too shy to hug someone else unless they did, I’d hug back only), I have no idea what to do about it, and it can become really awkward.

In my experience, if someone is feeling more or less happy, they want others to be happy too (they don’t want to be the only ones being happy in a sea of people being depressed), so they awkwardly try to ’spread the joy’, sometimes with opposite effects from what they intended. People think they can (or want to think they can) make others happy, even when they can’t.

I’ve had a lot of people in my family, mainly aunts and uncles, ask if I was okay if I had a gloomy face. And I didn’t mind if it was noticed at times. But yeah the smile command doesn’t help because it doesn’t solve the source of unhappiness, it would be a fake smile.

One, to Masaki and people who think like him, how is insulting people you don’t know anything about ‘constructive’ in any way? You missed the point, that it’s wrong to demand a smile from someone that you don’t know. Human interaction is fine, but /telling/ someone to do what you want them to do is wrong. In this case, it’s sexist because we’re talking about a situation where mostly men are demanding this of mostly women, as if they have the right tell us what to do, and then expect us to do it. Privilage.

Two, I can see where Masaki is coming from. I found that some of the comments were shockingly abrasive. I realize that some people hate to be bothered, but interacting with random people is a very important part when it comes to making friends, or just being a polite human being. Why be cold and rude to someone you don’t know, what’s the point? If a random stranger wants to strike up a conversation with me, out of boredom or interest in what I’m reading/what I think, unless I’m busy or in a particularly bad mood, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I don’t automatically assume that they are bad people, or they’re hitting on me. I ride the buses a lot, and end up chit chatting with people around me, as well as when I ride an airplane. It’s part of being human to want human interaction, but you do have the right to refuse to talk to people. There’s just no need to be so rude about it.

Also, awesome post, lucia.

/long-winded reply over, heh, sorry.

http://foreigndispatches.typepad.com/dispatches/2004/04/page/3/

When I clicked on the link, I was redirected to the author’s new blog site, but not before I managed to note the date of the original post (fortunately). Also fortunately, the author archived the material from the original location, thus this updated link.

I had a close male friend when I was about 15 and I was crying about something and he said, ‘you shouldn’t cry, it doesn’t suit you.’

I wasn’t looking for his comfort, but this made me very angry.

Things like this really made me realise what an idiot he was, especially as he cried in front of me an awful lot (it was a strange relationship) The implication was that, as a girl I was there to look pretty and crying was unattractive to him, so made him uncomfortable.

It seems to me that people are unsettled by females expressing any real emotions or just leading normal lives as human beings. Their faces are there to be commented on and looked at.

If I’m not feeling happy, I try to keep my head down in the streets because I get sick of people thinking it’s their right to make a comment on my appearance. I know I should just not let it get to me, but I get tired of it.

I find it sad that women have to be so confident just to walk with their head up all the time. (perhaps it’s just me being shy). I don’t have experience of being male, but I think that if they looked people in the eyes as they were walking down the street, no-one would comment on their appearance.

Oh, and I’ve had complete strangers tell me not to order something to eat at fairs, too, because, as one dirty old man put it “you’re going to get fat.” I think he might have been the same dude who ordered me to smile earlier. Oh, and I have had people come up to me at the bus stop when I’m reading and ask me questions about my book, interrupting me. Usually men. And I’ve had complete strangers try to pile in on me on an outdoor cafe table, while I was reading, even though there were many empty tables, because they “thought I looked like I needed a friend and a reason to smile.” Nosy intrusive jerks.

It’s rude to order someone to smile because it sounds corrective. It’s like you’re asking someone to change. And yes, I do get it from women, too. I don’t know whether it means something different to the women who say it than the men? Are we clear what it means to those who say it? It’s damn rude, no matter what. And it’s rude to barge in on someone eating or reading because it’s rude to interfere with them going about their business as intended.

People don’t really believe this do they?

Honestly, I believe there are some who don’t. Or, some think you may have a right to not be murdered or raped, but you don’t have a right to “trivial” things, like, oh, deciding how to spend your time particularly if your choice is to turn down an invitation to spend your t ime with them.

I still remember sitting at a table in the dorm cafeteria, and a guy asked me to play pool that night. I said no. Repeat 4 more times.

I finally turned to the other guys and said: Have I turned him down 5 times now? (Ok… kind of rude. But, I couldn’t think of decent alternatives.) And the guy asking me on the date actually said: “Well, why should she turn me down. I’m a nice guy“.

I really think he didn’t think he was overstepping the boundary. ( Oh.. engineering dorm. Mostly guys at the table. They laughed. )

There are guys who really don’t think women have what I would consider normal rights to self determination. (I advise not playing pool with said guys….)

:-b

It’s as if these men who tell women to smile take it personally that a woman isn’t smiling.

I don’t get the “smile!” command alot, which I think is rude and basically says you need to soften/beautify yourself a bit or the next guy’s gonna have to look at that mug of yours too.

Highlights that were said to me in the library during my lunch breaks over the past month.
1. You made me forget what I was looking for.
2. Stop distracting me. (wink)
3. You have nice hair.
4. Can I draw you? You are like an angel. Can I have your picture? (No, I’m not joking).
5. Do you like to read?
6. I really like your shoes. (in this guy’s defense he is probably mentally ill but does say it to me everyday regardless of the shoes I wear and not to other guys that I’ve noticed).
7. What kind of exercise plan are you on? You look good and I was just wondering how I might look as in shape as you. Whatever it is, it’s working.

This does not include people hiding behind the stacks and peeking at me or blatantly staring.

I’m cute, I guess, but I’m not out winning (or entering!) beauty contests. I’m your average female wearing a wedding ring, sitting by herself reading, wanting to be left alone.

You can be nice or you can be rude. These men will remain the same.