Nov 25 2008
Victim Mentality
Alright. So an unnamed acquaintance of mine put a post on Facebook today that I totally disagreed with. Basically, she thought that men should not tell women to smile. The idea was that this was actually a man’s way of asserting his dominance over a woman. She argued that even if it is not intentional, this is a subconscious intention of a man who tells a woman to smile (or, presumably, do anything else). Even if a man is genuinely trying to cheer someone up, this of course comes from centuries of programming that women need to be taken care of. On the other hand, a woman can tell a man to smile and it means nothing.
This bothers me so much. It can be expanded to other “social justice” issues as well. This is something that we all do all the time. We tell people to smile, because we want the people around us to be happy. There’s all kinds of issues I have with this, but none of them involve sexism. When women (or any other group) make something about sexism (or any other ism) that isn’t intended that way, they perpetuate sexism, and increase their own sufferings. First of all, it is not okay to tell women to smile, but women can tell men to? Do women want to be treated the same, or not? Patronizing previously opressed groups is not the way to bring justice to our worlds.
Second of all, life is 10% what happens to us, and 90% how we react. A woman can take a man’s request to smile for what it was intended as, an attempt to cheer her up, or perhaps even just a habitual quick comment. They can smile or not smile. Maybe they appreciate the man’s concern for their happiness. Maybe they think it’s none of the man’s business whether or not they are smiling. Maybe they think that instead of telling them to smile, the man should do something to actually improve their mood. All of those are normal responses. Or a woman can ead into it as a perpetual power struggle in which the man has for centuries come out on top.
If asking someone to smile is a part of that power struggle, what else is? Asking your wife to pick up the kids when you have to work late? Asking a friend to call you so you can make plans for the weekend? Asking a woman to help you with something? Pretty much, by this logic, any question or request made by a male to a female is sexist. This is absurd.
There are a lot of unjust things going on in our world. I don’t deny that, and I think we all have a responsibility to try to improve the world we live in, and improve ourselves. I also think, however, that until women, “minorities,” and other groups stop thinking of everything that happens to them in life as a gender, racial, or whatever-else issue, their lives will revolve around being a woman, a minority, or whatever else.
I have problems with political biases that completely control a person’s view of the world (if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail), including the extreme feminist bias. And I almost always tend to come at things from a completely different angle. So, I view the suggestion (demand?) to smile as one of those useless pop psychology gimmicks that come into play when you don’t know what else to do. If a person is truly down for some reason, putting on a forced smile isn’t going to make them feel better, no matter what the “research” says.
Ugh. As a woman, I cannot stand the whole victim mentality thing. Seriously, if a guy said, “Aww, smile Lindsay!” I would probably blush and smile, because it means that he cares enough to want to see me happy. And I couldn’t agree with you more on this statement: life is 10% what happens to us, and 90% how we react. Amen man!
PS- Thanks for your comment on my page, I’m adding you to my blogroll as well.