Why Women Smile

In our culture, friendliness is conveyed through with(predicate) a make a showcase and it is agreed in the discipline of Anthropology that the pull a face is some social occasion that carries across wholly cultures. In every human society, grimaces convey the same emotions happiness, pleasure, enthusiasm and other positive feelings. However, smiles seem to mean different things between the manpower and women, of our culture, who exchange them. As my step father said, a cleaning fair sex who smiles is seen as friendly, but also more than exchangeablely single. Simply put, pull a face is an irresistible quality and most people flock to a torrid smile like moths to a flame.For women, joyous could mean galore(postnominal) things. I, among others, take aim often eras feigned a smile in nervousness, irritation, awkwardness and sometimes glum happiness. In intimate settings, a natural smile fancys a person is enjoying her or himself and the other people present. In pr ofessional settings, especially that of customer service, a smile, feigned or non, is a implorement. It makes the business seem warm and open to all but smiling on the job and make up in little formal environments support lead to problems for women. Un indirect requested perplexity is often gained through a broad, seemingly genuine smile.In Amy Cunninghams essay, wherefore Women Smile, she mentions, We smile so often and so promiscuously that the make a face adult young-bearing(prenominal) has scram a peculiarly American pattern (325). On many occasions, Ive heard of a man who yells at a cleaning lady on the street to Smile baby It aint that drab. Smiling seems to have become something of a social requirement. To the observer, the smile-less supposed(p) curmudgeon business leader be falsely interpreted. She moldiness non be riant because she is non smiling. This particular individual could have trouble with smiling due to human face damage, being in deep thought or whitethornbe she has exclusively suffered a death of a family member.Whatever the circumstances, the crazy has decided that he does not like her frown, for it moldiness be so intolerably unattractive that he has taken it upon himself to make a statement. On a daily basis, the prevalent is reminded by the media that being attractive is important and a beaming smile is attractive. To be plain, humorless and rejected by men was a sort out given to suffragettes in the early twentieth century, as the book Womens Rights Changing attitudes 1900-2000 (11) mentions. Smiling has been labeled as an essential quality for women in our country.Smiling is a social grace that could easily be sexualized because it opens the door for fundamental interaction and a lot of female to male interaction ends up involving sex. subsequently all, women and men argon made by nature to reproduce with each(prenominal) other, therefore sexuality between the two is biologically inherent. Even though this is the case, the act of smiling itself is not the root bonk, it is merely the outer splutter of the conflict. In the book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy spoke virtually the result of the Tonight Show, in May 2003, which Katie Couric guest hosted.Couric later commented that she wanted to show America her fun side on the Tonight Show, but in truth she was exposing more than being fun, or even being sexual. rightfully what she was showing was that she was open to a certain sort of management- which is something that we particularisedally require if we argon going to animadvert of a woman as hot. hotness doesnt just yield approval. Proof that a woman actively seeks approval is a crucial criterion for hotness in the offset printing sharpen. (32) A smile can convey openness, submission, a willingness to socialize, playfulness and that a person is seeking not save attention, but approval.When smiling and drooping at what a customer or someone we have delight in has to sa y, the speaker may feel sizable roughly themselves and may gain a sparked interest in the listener. To be engaged in socialization likely delegacy openness to more socialization. This is the point where the meaning of a smile can become tangled in a web of miscommunication. Again, Ariel Levy mentions, For women, and except for women, hotness requires projecting a miscellanea of eagerness, offering a promise that any attention you receive for your physicality is welcome. (33), and smiling is the first step down a road to attention gained through behaviorism, a philosophy of psychology that deals with learning through experience. In a mans world, a woman who smiles is a sure woman. Through a set of past experiences of women smiling or not smiling, a man can asses what these facial expressions mean. To men, a smiling woman is a friendly woman and a friendly woman is a potential mate. It is a simple, easy to understand, thought process. To the contrary from a womans eye, smiling could mean many an emotion or thought.A female passerby could have multiple crusades to willfully smile other than a males sexually attractive qualities. She could be thinking about how she has been promoted at work, is happy about the weather, her new pamper fish is on her mind or she may have simply remembered a good memory that took place nearby, all while happening to make eye contact with this stranger. The stranger does not know she is very pleased about her new pet fish and therefore jumps to the assumption that her smile was directed blatantly toward him.She does not know him, therefore he must be attractive or she would not have thrown him that suggestive facial expression. As well, women are taught from a young age to smile eagerly because women are supposed to be nice. Girls play with baby dolls and domestic utensils like miniature ovens when boys are playing with miniature military equipment and G. I. Joes. Women are to be the kind and agnatic sex while the men are to be the aggressors. Smiling at a passersby is the polite thing to do, the lady like thing to do. For women, it is a reflex.In her article in the online magazine XOJane, S. E. Smith wrote and article about the issue of not constantly smiling in public and the response of the smile baby guy, a male stranger who tells women that they should smile in public situations. Its al focussings smile baby guy talking to a woman or someone he reads as a woman. This is about the fact that ladies need to look pretty, and furthermore, that ladies need to be in good moods all the time. Telling people to smile is about telling them that you think theyre in an unacceptable moodIts yet another reminder of the ways in which women are expected to perform for the public, to put up a good face at all times or face the consequences. (1) These consequences that a women could face can range from social labeling to ostracization to violence. If women, the gentler sex, are not smiling like they are expected to be, something must be unseasonable and men, being the aggressors must do something to fix or stop it. A woman such as my mother, who takes her job seriously and is stoic when needful gains labels such as cold and unapproachable.This is not the case, but she happens to lack that cladding smile that should be plastered across her face at all times. She is at work to get her job done and this means that smiling is not always appropriate. A friendly, non-threatening smile has become the appropriate archetype for women. Women have allowed a perpetuated pick up of femininity, of predictability and kind nature, to exist, mainly through our smiles. It has become an expectation for us. Amy Cunningham states, To limit a woman to one expression is like editing down and orchestra to one instrument.And the search for more authentic means of expression isnt easy in a culture in which women are still expected to be magnanimous smilers, helpmates in crisis, and curators of everybody elses mora le. (330) Women in America have become beacons of eagerness to the outside world. match to Cunningham, in the 1800s, attractive women began to appear in many types of advertisements. Society got the fancy that smiling was a natural trait for women and the women of the time caught on and began to imitate the pictures they saw. 328) This confuses people of other cultures when they encounter American citizens. We have much less formality when addressing strangers and authority figures, and we tend to flash our smiles automatically. When the McDonalds chain eating house was introduced in Moscow in 1992, the Americans who ran the businesses were extremely discouraged when the employees wouldnt crack smiles when greeting customers, who I presume, also did not smile. (329) As a society, it seems that we do not consciously recognize our tendency to oer use our smiles for any old occasion.Our teeth are used when anxious, in happiness and in an attempt to be socially pleasing. Along with our chimerical images of smiles come unrealistic expectations of reality. Our faces are lying to us. Gaining respect is also a plight that the smile has caused personally and professionally for the female gender as a whole. If women are treated as sweet and domestic, expected still to fulfill the stereotype of the kind, listening role, we can not state our opinions thoroughly. It is time that the gentle sex make a new image.Levy explains, It no hourlong makes sense to blame men. Mia Leist and plenty of other women are behind the scenes, not just in front of the cameras, making decisions, making money, and hollering We want boobs. playboy is a case in point. Playboys image has everything to do with its pajama-clad, septuagenarian, babe-magnet founder, Hugh Hefner But in actuality, Playboy is a company by and large stretch by women. Hefners daughter Christie is the chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises.The CFO is a middle-aged mother named Linda Havard. The Playboy Foundation is run by Cleo Wilson, and African-American former civil rights activist. A woman named Marilyn Grabowski produces more than half the magazines photo features. (35) At this point, not only do we fill the roles of the smiling, sexy woman, but women everywhere are operative in jobs that continue to further the attitude that we have a specific purpose. That purpose being a thing to look at. A thing that looks good, a thing that smiles.It is hypocritical for women to take part in these careers, save as later mentioned by Ariel Levy, in her interview with Christie Hefner, she asked her how she (Christie) felt about young women aspiring to be in Playboy magazine. Her response was, The reason why I think its perfectly okay is because the way women see being in the magazine is not as a career bust as a statement. (40) Levy goes on to explain, An actress or a mother sure, but a lawyer or an exe turf outive not necessarily. Putting your tush on display is still not the best way to make par tner or impress the board.The only career for which appearing in Playboy is a truly strategical move is a career in the sex industry. (43) Smiling does not prove that we are intellectuals or have intense work ethics. Smiling does not show all of the hard physical labor we have done or the hours we have put into studying to earn our bachelors, know and PHDs. Smiling does not show that we wish to better ourselves more than our grandmothers envisage was possible. Mostly, smiling shows the world that we believe we are content with the status quo.We must fight back against the stigmas we are furthering in our culture. Smiling is the start. If we can cut back on smiling and only use our grins for genuine happiness, in spontaneous joy, we can begin to move onward. If we can show that smiling has a certain meaning, that the connotation it currently possesses is an inaccurate portrayal of our intelligence, wants and needs, we can gain more respect. The wish for a better future must be ful filled through showing our own society and finally the world that we do not meet the standards of a smile, but that we outstrip those standards.