by Sam Holmes

I like to think that I share similarities with Malia and Sasha Obama. After all, the three of us are intelligent, fashionable, widely-loved girls of color, right? Okay, I’m exaggerating. I’m entirely unfamiliar with the burden of having an unbelievably powerful parent, dining with diplomats has never been an item on my agenda, and I do not have to worry about navigating my teenage years with a crew of Secret Service agents surveying my every move. Our lives are different. But I feel some solidarity with them this week after the media attacked them for their appearance during the Presidential turkey pardon. Their crime?  The two first daughters were guilty of hiding their pearly whites. They committed a grievous transgression by not being visibly enthusiastic as their father stood next to the chosen turkey. I can relate to the Obama daughters. I, too, have been guilty of NSWW (Not Smiling While Woman).

I noticed NSWW  early on. When I delivered a presentation in elementary school, my teacher’s largest critique was my lack of a smile. I was giving a presentation on the Civil Rights Movement and how segregation had affected the black community as a whole. And yet, I was still expected to be bubbly, enthusiastic, and approachable as I stood in front of my peers. I committed NSWW again last year, when I gave another presentation about gender equity and social movements. I described issues such as wage gaps, difference in confidence levels between genders, and society’s expectations for women. I was impassioned, but not necessarily excited as I led the audience through my observations of sexism. When the time arrived for the audience to ask questions, one man’s hand shot up and he said, “Let’s have a smile out of you!”

As I am sure Sasha and Malia could agree, there are times and places to smile. However, these smile-provoking situations are not the same for everyone. We may discover out pockets of happiness in different places. In the case of the Sasha and Malia Obama, their feelings of content did not occur on national television. The national media captured their NSWW moment, and unsolicited judges decided to contribute their unwarranted opinions. Some social media users made memes out of the duo, and others questioned whether their facial expressions signified a gaping lack of patriotism on their part. People threw labels at them like disrespectful or classless. Their father’s job title has given them heightened expectations to be effusive figureheads at every hour of the day. This expectation is neither fair, nor realistic.

But this issue extends beyond the Obama girls or myself. There is a culture of infallible friendliness in which women are forced to participate. Everyone from Beyoncé to countless friends of mine have expressed the pressure to be perpetually perky. This is a stark contrast to the criticism that women are too open with their emotions. We are deemed weak when we reveal our feelings, but we are also disparaged for not displaying enough excitement. Whether we are working, driving, studying, exercising, struggling, eating, or simply existing, we are not fulfilling our duties as females unless we seal it with a smile. These pressures are dehumanizing; as they dictate women feign a certain emotion in order to appease others. No matter how we are feeling, women are expected to be approachable. The needs of other people supersede our own as peers, colleagues, and even complete strangers want to feel as if they can always come up to us and strike up an entertaining conversation.

This expectation for women manifests itself in street harassment. There are countless accounts of women who have been told to smile by leering men as they go about their daily routines. While some people may try to downplay these interactions, I can attest to the fact that they can make women feel judged and unsafe. As women participate in a range of tasks, they are subjected to the opinion of others. The pressure to smile is not a burden that women should have to add to the list. Men are not expected to go through life with a smile plastered across their faces at all times. It is an unfair, unrealistic, and unyielding demand that impacts women from all walks of life. Women have a right to their feelings, whether they reveal excitement or discontent. If we smile it should be genuine, organic, and our own decision. Because, at the moment, these fake smiles aren’t making us happy.