I FINALLY DID IT!!!!!
My whole adult life I have been offended and annoyed by entitled-ass men telling me to smile. It gets me so worked up every time, but I’m usually not thinking quickly enough, or in a position to confront the guy. I have serious staircase wit when it comes to this scenario.
Today I was standing inside Sullivan Station waiting for my bus, when a guy brushed past me, saying, “Smile, beautiful.”
My bus was already one minute late, so I froze, trying to decide if it was worth it for me to potentially miss my bus by confronting this guy. After a few seconds of hesitation I realized I would be kicking myself all night if I didn’t, so I grabbed my T-pass and ran after him, catching up with him on the subway platform.
I went up to him and said, “Just so you know, it doesn’t make women feel good when you tell them to smile. Sometimes people have shitty days and they don’t feel like smiling. It’s offensive to just tell them to smile.”
He started apologizing and saying he didn’t mean it like that, then said, “But you’re beautiful, and you would be more beautiful if you smiled.”
“Whatever. You know what? It’s not my job to look nice for you. I’m out living my life, and I could have had something really bad happen to me today, I could have had someone die, you don’t know, and you telling me to smile is just disrespectful.” (side note, today was in fact the anniversary of a sad personal event).
He apologized some more and said he didn’t intend for it to come out like that, and he was truly sorry if I had lost a loved one. Not the most heartfelt apology I’ve ever heard (I’m not sure he truly grasped the reason for my outrage), but it was something.
“Okay,” I told him, “that’s all, I just need you to know that it is not cool.”
As I turned to leave, he said, “You spent $1.70 to tell me that?”
“Nah, I have a monthly pass.”
And then I caught my bus.
– Allison
Location: 1 Cambridge St, Charlestown, MA 02129
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Amber Dawn Buchholz says
I’m a little perplexed to see this experience filed under the category of “street harassment”. If harassment is the word we use to describe one person telling another to smile, what words will we use to describe the verbal and sometimes physical assaults that happen to women every day, that degrade, intimidate and threaten their physical safety?
HKearl says
@Amber – Street harassment encompasses a range of behaviors from more benign acts like whistling and “catcalls” to flashing, stalking, groping, and assault. The commonality is that they are forms of gender-based, unwanted interactions between strangers in public. While “smile for me” may not seem like street harassment at first, when you consider that men don’t say that to other men and women don’t say that to men, you can see how it is a gender-based act. It’s a way of telling women that they are objects to look at and should be pleasing to men, not that they are complex human beings whose face may reflect different emotions at different times.
Alan says
Bravo Allison — glad you acted on your instincts. as you say, the reaction you received was “something”. Hoping the guy will think more about and get it! And for you that it was a release or sorts.
Beckie says
Wonderful story!!!