The subtle misogyny of "Smile, Sweetie! You'll look so much prettier."

Saturday night I posted my first week of selfies. 

Like clockwork, a man commented on how I look better when I smile. 

I smacked that down, even though I am confident he meant no harm. My doing so could easily be construed as rude; I mean, it's really a compliment, right? 

I shall now -- for all of the men, not just this one -- explore the issues with that exchange so that there is an internet record that can be used for quick reference on the topic. It will come up again, just as it has happened before.

(I have the strangest urge to start every segment "First of all," but they won't all really be first, so I'm going to fight it.)

There is a lot of gendered socialization that it is easy not to think about. With a little effort you can notice patterns.

If you are not a member of the dominant gender, noticing is significantly easier.

I have noticed over the years that when I disagree with a man, it annoys him a lot more than when a man disagrees with him. Pointing that out is super-offensive.

Once annoyed, if he doesn't really know me so is not constrained by politeness (more often on Twitter), he will make some criticism of my looks, most likely about me being fat. If we have common connections where the rudeness of calling me fat could draw censure (more often on Facebook), he will probably make a dismissive comment about my "little" blog.

I am big, my blog is little. Both are seemingly insults, but also factual. 

My blog serves my purposes, and I am pretty happy with it. I know how to adjust if my goals change.

I have had a harder time being happy with my body, but so much of that has been because of the stigma on how disgusting and wrong fat is. That may be cloaked in concern about health, but that paradigm ignores a lot of other things that are both bad and good for health, focusing on what is considered attractive. Then it comes up more for women, for whom it is important to be attractive for men. 

I have to reject this system; it has caused me nothing but grief. 

I know I look better when I smile. It is worth considering how painful that comment could be for someone who is insecure about her teeth, but we're going to move past that for now to some other questions:

• Why does being pretty matter?
• Why should your opinion on my prettiness matter?
  

Other things that could make me look prettier include weight loss, cosmetics, better clothes, and being able to afford getting to my hair stylist. (I trimmed my own hair in desperation two days ago, and I bought the clearance box of hair dye to save $3.)

Those all (if even possible) have costs of at least time or money; sometimes both! And yet they are expected of women, even though women get paid less for all labor and are expected to do more of the unpaid labor. Then that's not enough, because we still need to look good. 

I reject that, and there are difficulties with that rejection.  

I am currently looking for a job. My appearance will factor into how others perceive me, how much they want to hire me, and what they will pay me.

That's only one potential area of conflict. Rejecting male expectations sometimes gets me unfriended on Facebook and on Twitter sometimes I have to block. 

(I don't worry about a lot of harassment there, because like my blog my Twitter presence is small, and I escape a lot of notice. There are advantages to that, especially without a lot of resources.)

However, it becomes much more dangerous in the real world. If I get that request for a smile and smack it down at a bus stop, I could end up injured, raped, or dead. No, not all men will do it, but the ones who will are not conveniently labeled. Women  have to guess which is which. They do it all they time.

I can't change that, but I don't owe you a smile.

Here's the funny thing with the last comment: I was smiling in 6 of the 7 pictures (masked in two, but I think you can still tell). Then there was one funny face with gritted teeth. 

(This next week will be mainly funny faces too, but that was already planned; it's not a reaction.)

One of the joys of this round of #365feministselfie (my third) is that I look so much happier. The last time I did it, life was grinding me down and I hated seeing it in my face over and over again. It was a relief when that year ended.

So when I got a similar comment the last time, I was indeed looking sad.

That commenter and I had talked about a lot of things; it might not have been unreasonable for him to message me, "Hey, you look sad. Is there anything I can do?"

Of course, that would be emotional labor; that's for chicks.

In fact, the sadness wasn't anything he could have helped with, really, and he may have known that. When someone is going through a hard time, for something that is physically and emotionally exhausting, hmm, what  could be a helpful thing to say?

"I like it better when you smile."

I am so sorry that with all of the other things I have to do, I have forgotten about pleasing you.

In Kate Manne's Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, she finds (I'm paraphrasing) the essence of misogyny to be the expectation of women being at men's disposal. It's not that every woman serves every man, but she should be providing some service to some man, which definitely includes stroking and stoking the ego. 

I assume this is why when men who have been creepily hitting on a woman find out she is married, they apologize to her husband. Her discomfort doesn't matter, but encroaching on his territory does. As long as she belongs to someone, right?

This probably also explains why a Marketing professor with 344K followers is blaming the Reddit/Gamestop thing on young men not having enough sex.

https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1354532507723640835

(A lot of "incels" do get sex, by the way. They just feel that the women they are getting it with are not sufficiently hot.)

There's always a reason it's women's fault.

You may be thinking "It isn't that deep!" but you don't control the depth. That is done by the existing framework. If we accomplish enough structural change to where there is true equality that takes the pressure off of your comments, then we'll see how it feels. Maybe my security will mean I won't mind your comments, and maybe your security will allow you to give better compliments about me as a real person instead of a contestant in a beauty pageant who needs your advice.

I am lucky to be in a place now where I am okay with myself, and I don't have to manage that much danger. Usually my question is not whether it is safe to say something, but whether it is worthwhile.

If I am telling you to do better, it is because I believe that you are capable of doing so.

It's really a compliment.