This is an all ears English podcast, episode 15 20 for Why You Should Not Tell a woman to Smile.

Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts. Linda McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York Radio Girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City U. S a..

If you are a woman, have you ever been told to smile in American culture? For many women, this can be offensive. In this episode, you'll find out why.

Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Hey, Michelle, I'm doing well. Yeah, life is good. So but I'm excited about today's topic for our listeners. I think this is going to be fascinating. You know what? I'm smiling.

You don't have to smile. No, I don't. OK, but I can hear your smile on the mic. I can hear it first. Thank you. Yeah, I'm definitely smiling. I mean, Lindsay, do you feel pressure to smile a lot in life?

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I think what I would say definitively women, I think as a woman, I am probably expected to smile more than men are. I'm just going to say that that is my opinion. But definitively, yes.

Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, we talked about this recently. Like, if women if we think women are expected to smile more and we thought it would be a good topic. So we definitely want to dive into this today.

So we're going to talk about, like the pressure to smile, how it's kind of evolved over time. It's very interesting. And we're going to give you some links to a couple articles, to an article in a survey so that you can read more into this, because it's a fascinating topic.

Oh, so good. So good. OK, guys, but before we get into all this awesomeness here, I want you to go and get your fluency score. OK, so we now have a quiz available for you for free. It's a two minute quiz, seven questions. Go to our website, all ears, English dot com and find where it says free English quiz right there at the top.

And click that button, take your quiz, get your fluency score and get resources for your level.

OK, awesome. OK, so Lindsay, I read an article and it talked about a survey, so I wanted to share something from this survey.

So the survey is from Bite Me to Be Witty and Eat Dog.

It's called Women's Experiences with being told to smile. So that's what the survey is called. And it looks like they have over 500 women. So you guys can scroll through this. It's really fascinating. But so the first one, I'm just going to read it from the article. So this is a quote.

It says, 98 percent of women have been told had been told to smile at least once in their life. And it says nearly 15 percent of women said this occurs weekly or more often.

That's a crime. I'm sorry. It's a cry. That is. Oh, my gosh. OK, yeah.

So so that's a quote from the from the survey. So definitely check this out more because there's so there's so much that goes into it. And they mentioned, I believe, that the more senior women were told to smile, more than less senior women maybe at work.

So, you know, we could we could go more into this if we find out who would help us in our discussion. But that was another point that I found that I thought was really interesting.

Oh, my gosh, that's so interesting. I love it. So that's what we're talking. And I think today we're probably going to get into in my mind, just broadly, this is about so much more than just smiling. Smiling is just the physiological action that we take. But it's about the role that women are expected to take in society, at least in American culture, is probably more intense in other cultures. But I think that there still is an American culture, an expectation that women will support the speaker more, smile more and be a little bit more pleasant.

I don't know, just provide a little more support in certain scenarios where there aren't those expectations of men. Even when I was hanging out with my brother yesterday, I thought about, like the way he is in the world versus the way I am.

He's pretty stoic. What is the word stoic mean, by the way, Michelle?

It's kind of like strong or serious.

Yeah, strong and serious and quiet. He's pretty quiet. But when he does speak, people listen to him. And I find myself needing to fill the silence a lot more than he does. Like, he's just fine, like sitting in silence for a number of minutes at a time. And I just wondered how much of that is about gender. So this is about more than just smiling, but we're honing in on smiling today.

Yeah. It's also just about the feeling that I need to, like, speak and fill the empty space.

Yes. Support. And it's kind of being supportive. That's what I would boil that down to. And what's the word palatable kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Definitely. OK, awesome. So now we want to direct our listeners to this article. So either the survey came from the article or the articles came from the survey, I can't remember. But it we have the link for you here. So it's called Why Do People Expect Women to Smile? And it's from Bussel Dotcom. It's July six, 2017. So a couple of years old by DJ Calthorpe. And let's we're going to summarize some of the main points here.

So basically, they talk about how women smiling and laughing way back when was actually considered mischievous and sinful. Interesting.

So this makes me think of like, do you ever look at old family photos like black and white? For me? I have some black and white family photos from the eighteen hundreds.

It's crazy. Yeah. And when. I look at the women and the men, but the women, they're frowning like they're not even like smiling in photos didn't become a thing until I think into the 1980s, I think was.

Yeah. So it's that like that I don't know that women smiling. You was kind of you look like they could cause some trouble.

Right. All right. So and then later in the 18th century, women were seen smiling more in works of art and eventually it was used more in ads.

So like for advertising, some women smiling became like a nice and the article used the word subservient, which I thought was interesting. What a subservient mainland.

So it means being below and being kind of beholden or like just obeying someone else, being below someone.

This makes me think a little bit of the Mona Lisa because, yeah, the article talks about the mom who does. OK, cool, cool. What do they say about it? I can't remember, but I remember well, my thought would be like, you know, the fact that maybe that's why Mona Lisa is so intriguing to people, because we're not quite sure.

It's a very subtle smile that she has. Right. It's like somewhere in between a non smile and a smile.

And maybe that's intriguing to people. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to find where when. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It talks about the Mona Lisa. So, guys, if you want to read more about the Mona Lisa, definitely head on over to the article. But yeah, I mean, I talked about how women smiling did become more like non-threatening. And I think it was, you know, just it sounded like a lot was changed, like through advertisements.

So I thought that that was interesting. So you can read more about the history there. But I mean, women may feel like they have to smile at work, right. So it could be because this makes them appear to be less threatening. It could be one of the reasons. Right.

And it also talks about how women I believe I took this as a quote. So we talked about women of color and how they are, you know, really have to show that they're smiling. And I mean, this makes me I mean, that's that's not me saying it. That's right.

That's like what in society unfortunately expect. This makes me think of actually that show first ladies that we're always talking about.

Lindsay, do you remember in the Michelle Obama episode they're talking about? Yes. Yeah. Remember. What was that? Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. There was this scenario that they talked about where there was in the very beginning when Obama first got elected or was first running, maybe first elected. Right in the beginning of the campaign, they had to do an intervention because they had to change the way that Michelle was presenting herself. Unfortunately, she came in, I guess according to the critics and the campaign managers, they thought that she was being too emphatic in the way that she was presenting herself.

I don't agree with that. But that's what they decided as a campaign. And the ratings, I guess, started to show that the people were intimidated by her. Yeah. And a lot of this has to do with her race, I'm sure, unfortunately. Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's all the article mentions the the the words institutionalized racism that. Yes.

And it makes people of color, you know, feel they have to like, smile and look like apparently I don't know this all about, you know, racism really.

For sure. For sure. And that takes it in a different direction. Absolutely. So this is learning gender on top of racism. Fantastically interesting. I love it. But then they had to basically change the way she was presented. They had she had to soften a little bit.

Yeah. Which is really sad. It is sad. Yeah. Yeah, sad. So guys, yeah.

I want to take a brief outline about, you know, some of this topic and then, you know, you can I didn't want to dissect the entire article, but I wanted to give you a little taste so you can definitely go ahead and look more into that. But I wanted to also just talk about our own experiences and our own opinions with that context.

So, I mean, so people told you to smile or do you feel that you have to smile? Well, it's both right.

It becomes a cycle. But, yes, I definitely can't I can't point to an exact situation, but I can think about that. Having been told by men, usually adult men just smile, come on, smile like and it's very degrading, like, it's very insulting when you're told that. And then, of course, you're growing up as a woman in society. I've just internalized that.

I've just learned. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Michelle? What is your English fluency score?

You can find out in just a few minutes by taking our fluency quiz. Go to the English website, all ears, English dot com and click on the button. Free English quiz. You'll answer seven questions and get your score in just a few minutes. Go to the All your English website and click on that button. Free English quiz and we'll see you there.

I remember a specific time, I remember being at a dance club, not you wouldn't find me at a dance club very frequently, but when I studied in London, there were a few occasions where you got to go out and dance.

Sometimes I was like, oh, you got to go, Dad.

So I was at a club and I remember, I remember I was like, because generally those aren't my favorite places. They're like, usually you wanted to be in bed. It was three probably.

I probably wanted to be in bed. I was really just not feeling it. And I remember like I remember walking up or up to the bathroom or down from the bathroom. And I just probably had this look on my face like I don't belong here yet. I remember somebody being like, oh, smile.

And it was so weird. It was like, yeah, I was so irritated. Like, Why do I have to smile? Like, I'm tired and I don't know.

And then, oh, I also remember from college there's a picture of me and I must have been, you know, out at some also having some party that I probably didn't want to be a part of. And there was I'm dancing with the guy in this photo and he's like behind me and he can't see my face. And I very purposefully was not smiling because I knew that he couldn't see me. I probably didn't like this guy. And this was a very funny picture because it's kind of like this.

Like you wouldn't expect, like, you know, somebody to be not smiling and that kind of a picture.

And I think I was doing it as a joke because I don't want to insult them. And I knew my friends could see me, but I love that.

But just the fact that you did that right, I had to kind of hide it from him tells you a lot about what we've learned as women.

This may sound like a terrible person. By the way. This is a weird like this was like not a person like, OK, we do what we have to do.

It's OK. Michelle, it's interesting to hear these stories. Yeah. You know, and there's the cultural layer here, too. Right. And I think as we finish up, the episode will encourage our listeners to reflect on this in their culture, because I know that smile's mean different things in different cultures. And at the same time, it's kind of the universal language, the smile. Right. But there are cultural layers to it as well.

Right. Like, I'm not like it made me think about, OK, I'm not because I smile a lot, a lot like I am like a chipper, you know, happy person person. Yeah. Yeah. But but if you Belykh do, it kind of makes me think like what came first. Like is it ingrained into me to smile more when I have been doing it anyway. So that's kind of the deeper question that I'm thinking about here.

Oh I like that question.

Is it ingrained in me by is it like cultural learning or is it your personality?

You're optimistic, so you naturally want to smile. There's so much we can discuss here.

I mean, where should we leave our listeners with on this discussion here?

Well, I mean, basically, I mean, I wonder if this is going to change again eventually, because I I think the, you know, women's role in the world is always changing and with, you know, women really standing up more for themselves and doing things about in society, I think that it could change.

Like just to think that I don't know.

It's just funny to think that because it has evolved so much, it wasn't always that women felt they had to smile and smiling was a negative thing. Right. So like where like we have to take control over the smile. I think we have to take control of this issue of women and make this decision for ourselves. And I mean, we just also think, like if, you know, if somebody tells you to smile, like, you have to kind of have a response for that.

If you don't want tourists to say that.

I mean, Lindsay, what do you think is the best response? Like, do you think people should call somebody out if they tell you to smile?

You know, I think it depends on the context and depends on who's around. Obviously, you know, just decide how well you know the person, how inappropriate was it. And do you have the time to invest the time in, like, teaching them a lesson? I mean, sometimes people need to be taught a lesson and to understand why something is offensive before they can stop doing it, because they'll just keep doing it. So it depends on how much energy you have in that most drink.

But I, I don't think it's a bad thing to call the person out. That's how we become more aware. Right.

Well, and I think that, you know, because this might be different in different cultures. I mean, I think this is a good thing for our listeners to know. Like, definitely I mean, whether you are listening to the show, you're a man or a woman.

I think that and no matter what your gender is, I think you should know that you should probably not tell somebody to smile.

I think that's a key takeaway for our language and what's appropriate, actually, definitely a KITAGAWA.

I love that takeaway in at least in American culture, it could be insulting to a woman if you say that to her. So just be aware of that. And that's, you know, and every time everything we're saying we want to think, put the cultural layer on top of it. What are the expectations in this culture? Right.

Right, right. I mean, and if you really are like, think about it, why is it bothering me that this person isn't smiling? Is it bothering me because it's making me uncomfortable? Or am I actually genuinely worried about them? Like, can I tell that something's wrong and that's why they're not smiling? Or is it like, oh, they're supposed to be pleasing me with their smile?

Why do you need that smile? I love that ask yourself and then ask yourself the key question, where you say if this person were a man, would I be just as disturbed that they're not smiling? That, to me is the key question, right?

I mean, if you're really, really genuinely worried about somebody, you can say, is everything OK, how are you? But don't focus on women specifically with smiling and don't focus on a smile. Focus on their general. Like if you if you know them, if you can tell something's wrong, not about the smile, but there's there's so much to discuss here. Lindsay, I think we should do follow ups. I mean and. Yeah, I mean, what do you think?

Oh, man.

I would love to have our listeners come back to the blog for this episode and now let us know a couple of things. This is 15 24 type that into the search bar. Let us know.

Have if you're a woman, have you ever been asked to, you know, to smile, been told to smile? And if you're a man, same thing. Have you ever been told that in your culture and how does this mix with your culture? Right. What is the what are the associations with telling a woman to smile in your culture? Is that insulting? Give us the summary. I really want to know.

Yeah, yeah, me too. It would be interesting. Like now I like wannabe all of a sudden a big researcher and, you know, do these big surveys like to be different to here across cultures and different things, people's opinions with smiling. So. Right guys, again, not a good idea to tell a woman to smile. I'm almost an American English.

Yeah, yes. Yes, exactly. That's what we're speaking from a knowledge is American women from the USA. So that's what it is for us. So let us know how it is for you. I think that's the takeaway for today.

Very interesting. Good stuff today. Michelle, I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for hanging out. All right. Bye, Lindsey. Bye.

Thanks for listening to all ears English, would you like to know your English level, take our two minute quiz. Go to all ears, English dot com forward slash fluency score. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit. Subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.