Pirate's Cove

Not sure about you, but I’ve told plenty of women to smile in my life.

I’ve also said it to plenty of men.

I’ve told plenty of people to be happy. Tried to make them smile.

I’m an Evil person. You too, if you’ve done it

BEYOND LOCAL: Why you should think twice before telling girls to smile

Girls are constantly told to smile, from T-shirts sold in stores that say “everyone loves a happy girl” to the catcallers telling young women to smile when they walk down the street.

Audrey Hepburn once famously stated that “happy girls are the prettiest girls” — now this quote is reiterated in the post-feminist marketplace on T-shirts, pillow cases and stationery.

Perhaps the most public callout to a girl to smile was Donald Trump’s caustically sarcastic tweet that climate activist Greta Thunberg “seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”

But lift up the hood of this pressure to be perceived as carefree and happy and look underneath: something much more disturbing is revealed.

I have been studying the experiences of girls, particularly tweens aged eight to 12, with regards to consumer culture for the past 15 years. The pressure on girls to be fun, happy and smiling reveals much about the cultural expectations projected onto girls and girlhood.

This constant expectation of girls to be always smiling depoliticizes girls and positions them as compliant in their own subjugation. “Fun” acts as a distraction from deeper political issues, discouraging girls from considering the exploitation and violence that girls worldwide face.

Directing their attention to the myriad social and political issues facing girls, like the climate crisis or missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women, would upset the happiness and fun of girlhood.

They just can’t help mentioning the climate change scam. And always going to the worst things possible. Bunch of miserable people

Feminist scholar Sara Ahmed writes that happiness is promised to those who commit to living their life in an unchallenging way that does not upset the status quo. To challenge the status quo by drawing attention to these issues disrupts the fantasy.

If everyone loves a happy girl, as the T-shirt says, then unhappy girls are unlovable: it’s a clear warning to girls to maintain happiness or else face being “psychologically and aesthetically unappealing.”

Or, perhaps people just respond better to people who aren’t being miserable shits. Like most Liberals.

Happiness and fun are forms of popular feminism that frame gender equality as individual empowerment eclipsing a feminist structural critique. Unhappiness deviates from the post-feminist script in which women — who are responsible for their own happiness and emancipation — need to think positively and be inspired to make change. The emphasis is on individual actions over collective consciousness.

These moral demands for happiness and fun undermine citizenship and commitments to community.

Bunch of miserable people.