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.

    • magnetosphereOP
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      344 months ago

      “you don’t look right here let me change you”

      That’s pretty fucking rude. I am continually amazed by how much women are expected to tolerate.

  • @jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months 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.

    I can’t, either. That’s why.

    • @btr_fan87@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I agree with the sentiment, but I, a man, actually have customers tell me to smile more weirdly often working retail.

      • @jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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        84 months ago

        And they say it’s because “you’re prettier when you smile” or something like that?

      • @jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        That’s one exception that doesn’t surprise me. Do you have any sense of how often they are doing this with intentional irony compared to with genuine obliviousness?

        • @btr_fan87@lemmy.world
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          44 months ago

          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.

    • 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.

  • PMrain
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    424 months ago

    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.

    • Zier
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      84 months ago

      This is correct. The rule is, ‘anything you say to a woman must apply equally to a man’, if not, don’t say it. Try saying “hey, nice tits dude” and see how that works out.

    • magnetosphereOP
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      134 months ago

      Why are you turning this into a personal attack? Asking women to smile is not something I do.

  • Pennomi
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    294 months ago

    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.

    • magnetosphereOP
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      164 months ago

      I constantly have to remind myself that I can be perceived as “threatening”, because I’m typically not threatening at all. Having some empathy is a good start, but there’s so much I don’t know about what women deal with on a daily basis.

      • @zbyte64
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        94 months ago

        “dangerous by default” because you are a man and just as disposable; ain’t the patriarchy swell?

  • hendrik
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    4 months ago

    I mean we have countless Reddit stories where someone’s dog or grandma 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. You don’t know anything about that person. Maybe they’re not smiling for a reason. I’d say it is very likely that this might be the case… Otherwise they’d probably already smile… And people keep forcing themselves on other people and telling them what to do. Like smile. When it’s really none of their business and very intrusive.

    Leave them be. Everyone is entitled to feel. Sometimes people are happy and sometimes they’re not. It’s not however their job to smile for you.

    And if it’s a medical condition or they were born with what people call a “resting bitch face”… You’re just rubbing it in and be the 500th person who did a negative comment on their looks.

  • @TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
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    224 months ago

    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.

    • @Azzu@lemm.ee
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      64 months ago

      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 :)

  • @SloppyPuppy@lemmy.world
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    194 months ago

    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).

  • Fat Tony
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    4 months ago

    /c/NoStupidQuestions

    Asks a “stupid” question

    -22

    Wow, you really played yourself didn’t you, OP?

    Seriously, wtf is even the point of this subreddit at this rate?

    • @Kalladblog@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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 and lack any self awareness as much as all the other people online.

      • @SgtAStrawberry@lemmy.world
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        54 months ago

        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.

  • Elaine Cortez
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    164 months ago

    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.

  • @Pogogunner@sopuli.xyz
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    154 months ago

    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.

    • magnetosphereOP
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      54 months ago

      I just removed the dupes, thanks. Fedia was being glitchy.

      Plus, you explained your answer well.

  • FuglyDuck
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    154 months ago

    apparently everything. Why do women need to “look better”?