UNDERLYING SEXISM : RESTING BITCH FACE
We all know the biggest problems that sexism brings us even in the modern world. Only lots of people don’t see the underlying sexism that we face yet. One of those things is the well-meant concept of the “Resting Bitch Face”. Women, how many times have you heard people tell you “You should smile more!” “Why do you look so mad?”. Or how many times have you heard the following things about other women “I thought she was a bitch when I met her.” “Maybe if she looked a bit nicer, people would like her more.”
WE ARE NOT ANGRY
Resting Bitch Face is a term used whenever to describe a person whose natural facial expression’s look like they are mad. Only what stands out is, that the term is mostly used to describe women who don’t feel the need to show everyone their smile all the time. Which is completely not necessary and shouldn’t even be a problem.
Most of the time when a woman relaxes her face, she is immediately associated with being a bitch, mean and seeming mad. Only when a man relaxes his face he is cool, wanted, serious and maybe even mysterious. As women, we are expected to be kind, loving, and warm. And when a woman doesn’t show these sides of her, she is considered cold, mean, a bitch. This shows that society still expects women to look attractive to men. To smile nicely, look beautiful and please the men around them by doing these things.
I believe that sexism can only be tackled down when even the underlying sexism is gone for the most part.
JUST LIKE THEY AREN’T
A study done by Byte, shows the numbers on women’s experience with being told to smile more: https://www.byteme.com/pages/womens-experiences
They surveyed over 500 women, and 98% of the women had been told to smile more at least once in their life…
“15% of the women said this occurs weekly or more often. 62% of women said it’s slightly to extremely inappropriate to tell them to smile. 56% of women had been told to smile by men in public.”
This is becoming problematic on the workplace because as the study shows ;
“70% of millennials holding senior and executive positions believed being “liked” was more important to success.
And,
“over half of the women said they had RBF and believed they were taken 20% less seriously as a result.”
So next time, when the term RBF comes to your mind. Think a second time before you decide if you really want to use this term.