Great. A bash of “wokeness” by a man who barely has his eyes open & is stumbling his way out of a week-end long sleep following a week of being barely half awake.
The usual toxic male twist on feminisms that totally misunderstands them [yes, please note the plural; that “s” is not a typo], sees what are actually heroine narratives as somehow provoking “victimhood.” He is so fogged up with sleep that he can’t see how MEN constantly telling WOMEN to smile is sexist…cuz he hasn’t the faintest idea how to put himself in a female someone else’s shoes.
We’ll smile when we feel like it, dudeboy. When we have something to smile about. Your expectation that women smile at you thru the smelly brown “pudding” that gets dumped on us daily…well, it might be funny to us if you said you were performing a satirical skit as a “devil’s advocate,” but really, if you are serious about that 💩💩💩, we have several choices:
1] Ignore you [cuz you really aren’t all that important
2] Consider whether there’s the least possibility that, as an intellectual, you are prepared to concede that you might, in fact, be wrong…and proceed accordingly
3] Decide whether whatever potential you have is worth the time it will take to patiently explain why you are wrong. [So, so wrong that the patriarchal mote in your retina could be permanently embedded & all is lost.] See, a cyst of latent patriarchal poison has exploded and you are suffering patriarchal peritonitis. It is imperative that the mote be removed ASAP.
Perhaps if you are properly treated, cure could be possible — but time is of the essence. And despite all lies you’ve heard about us, we really do respect your right to life, at least while you are young. We will do our best to save you from damnation in that final circle of hell, reserved for the irredeemables.
We do not easily abandon persons with dicks, especially if they are young enought to still be more maleable than those we’ve had to carry on our backs for millennia.
I must warn you, though, that the feminist rapture is quite imminent, and we may not be able to reach you on your Road to Damascus, where the choice you make on the direction you take will be permanent. [BTW, currently Damascus is known as the most unlivable city in the world, so we rather suspect you won’t want to go there, but that mote in your eye may be too deeply embedded to get you to see the wrong turn you are taking.]
On that note, I begin the exorcism.
About those smiles you are convinced need to be splayed across our faces whenever you desire them…
Why do you think women should not resent your desire for us to smile for you when we do not, in fact, feel like smiling at anyone, much less you? What’s that about? Do you have a moral or ethical mandate to get every woman to smile for you, for fear the devil may open an unprecedentedly speedy express route to Damascus and you will find yourself endlessly sliding down Alice’s rabbit hole?
What if you’ve mixed up your mandate and really you’re supposed to leave women alone to express the emotions they feel…especially when they are sitting quietly and thinking about something painful that happened to them, or perhaps trying to work out an earth-shattering “theory of everything” that will change the world by making human beings lose their desire for power over other humans.
I’m wondering why you can’t see the passive aggressiveness embedded in it. Can’t hear the insult. Can’t grasp how disgustingly patronizing it is. Can’t see that being poked at for not smiling at a man reminds us men still haven’t let go of the idea that it’s our duty to make men happy and to smile thru all the shitty expectations they dump on us.
We’re supposed to pretend we are flattered by that attention no matter how patronizing it is. No matter that deep inside our stomachs are churning so badly we’d like to smash his piehole with the anger and frustration we may be feeling about such things as babies in cages, or a rapist as president.
Especially since O M F G! you do so many things for us. I mean,why can’t we just be happy for the male attention? It’s such a gift to us, you know, to get a man’s attention…even if the guy demanding the smile [why must you use the command form of the verb when you tell us to smile?]… is intimating that there’s another special gift for us if we do [in other words, a chance to suck his magnificent, god-like dick — which just so happens to be impossibly HYYUGE!]?
Yup. With all the glorioius things men “do for us” we surely ought to be grateful. Why, they deserve to be smiled at whenever they ask…or rather tell. I mean it’s one of the rewards for having a dick, isn’t it? What we women might have on our minds at that moment can’t possibly be important enough or serious enough or valuable enough for us to not even condede a pretend smile at him.
Ya know, a woman’s frown makes them uneasy. Even a bit frightened. The darker the frown, the scarier. And men’s fear of a woman’s frown is felt deep down in their male bits, cuz even if it’s not in their consciousness at the moment, the vagina dentata of classical myth is a voracious castrator, and her terrifying visage is never very far from their minds. Good grief, ya know! That vagina dentata could very well just come at them, roaring, scratching, biting both their dick heads and their head heads off.
…And utterly destroying their delicately constructed masculinity. That just will not do. Can’t have men fearing women will cut off their dicks — metaphorically OR physically! That would be the end of civilization as we know it…
Oh dear. I just realized all that might sound angry to you. Above all, women must NOT let their anger be visible [see vagina dentata above].
So. Here you have what you were certain was hiding [quite visibly] in this essay: here we are with yet another angry feminist…whose anger apparently signals to men that we see ourselves as victims. Yep, that old predictable Straw WoMan — if she is all that angry she must be “on the rag”…mmm…ahhhh…no. Not possible. Long LONG past menopause & happy about it cuz of the glorious freedom that comes with it.
No longer at the mercy of bodies that bleed without even being cut. [Deep down in pre-history, that ability to bleed that much without dying meant we had special powers, a certain magic…and lo and behold, tiny new human beings came out of the same place as that blood. Women had the power to bring new life into the world while bleeding heavily…a marriage of life and death, and somehow women usually survived that moment. Men so admired & wondered at that amazing, magical capacity that they worshipped them, told stories about them as goddesses, created matriarchal societies out of that worshipfulness.
Until, that is, men finally figured out the role they had in producing that new life. Not very long after, the tides had turned, patriarchy replaced matriarchy [See Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy; and Riane Eisler, The Chalice & the Blade], & whole new societies were built out of men’s need [more like desperation] to claim that power of creating new life themselves, so they invented the idea of the homunculus, a fully formed tho tiny body that men implanted in the “soil” of women’s wombs the way a seed of corn gets planted in the earth…and voila! Women’s wombs only connection to new life was same as the soil that grew corn and wheat.
Angry woman? Yeah, gotta be that she feels victimized by men, so you can just dismiss us as unhinged, hysterical females with those vagina dentatas.
Funny thing. When men express anger they are perceived as taking charge & fighting back against those who might take advantage of them. Assertive, not agressive. Righteous, not hysterical.
Man walking down street [MWDS] spies a woman coming toward him who is deep in thought and has rather a grimace on her face. “Damn, that is scary. She’s not smiling at me so it must be cuz she wants to castrate me & if I don’t get her to smile I better either run like hell or put her down with bigger insults so she’ll see, really, I’m more powerful than she is & damn it she damn well better smile or I’m gonna give her something to frown about.”
Frowning woman — a top Harvard physicist [FWHP] working on a Theory of Everything is deeply engrossed in her thoughts. She is getting so close, but it’s just beyond her reach. She doesn’t notice Average Joe MWDS coming toward her and nearly bumps into him.
MWDS: SMILE! he nearly shouts, and jostles her shoulder in a flirty gesture.
FWHP looks up & sees MWDS for the first time. She looks at him quizically.
“Did I just bump into you? I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
MWDS tries to ratchet up his flirty grin and tries again:
SMILE! It can’t be all that bad!
FWHP is confused and looks at him quizzically. I’m sorry. What?
MWDS is getting cranky now but he tries to contain it.
I said SMILE!
FWHP: “Come again?” She is so confused by the demand for her to smile she doesn’t know what to say.
MWDS now angry at how difficult she is making a simple human transaction, says “I. Said. SMILE!” His voice is tinged with anger and he emphasizes each word.
FWHP, taken aback by his anger: “Let me make sure I understand you. You are angry with me because I didn’t smile at you? I didn’t even SEE you. I’m lost in thoughts about this very important project I’m working at.”
MWDS grimaces and speaks with a tone to match his face, saying “and what project might that be?”
“I am sorry, I don’t have time to talk about it now. It’s very complex, and I really must get on,” she says matter of factly, trying to be polite and still get away quickly from this very strange man.
MWDS is now irritated that she won’t stop for a few minutes chat with him.
“Excuse me,” she says, trying to push past him on the sidewalk.
MWDS: “So, you won’t even give a man a simple little smile to brighten his day. What’s wrong with you?”
FWHP gives him a twisted smile, a grimace really, and rushes away as quickly as she can.
MWDS: “BITCH!” he shouts loudly at her back.
FWHP steps up her walking speed, practically running.
