Word: smile
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...idea that cheerfulness was a sexist plot. If I correctly recall our last 42 arguments, you have been telling me that men not only have trouble expressing their feelings, they may even be emotionally tone deaf. Wouldn't it be logical for you to argue that women , smile more because they are less blocked emotionally, not because niceness is a symbol of servitude...
Wanda: Nice try, wily husband. In fact, the smile is a hostility deflector, and it is trotted out more often by disadvantaged groups. Women smile more than men because they have to appease men and because everyone assumes we are responsible for the emotional tone of social life...
Ralph: Au contraire, my ideological one. The smile is a famed instrument of social bonding, and females are simply better at it than males. Women's greater tendency to smile seems built in by evolution, probably as one tool to make them respond quicker and better to infants. Umpteen studies show that little girls are organized to respond better to people than little boys. They are more sensitive to the crying of other infants, and even in the first two or three days of life, they spend much more time smiling than newborn boys do. Doubtless this is an early...
Wanda: Those are genetic smiles, Ralph, and they have nothing to do with the beaming bimbo that you men have created as a model for all women. The pasted- on smile that we are supposed to wear marks us as sexy little numbers, perpetually feather-headed and reassuring...
Ralph: Be of good cheer, Wanda. Your doting husband understands and accepts your ideological commitment to grimness. But surely even a fearless feminist needn't be a sourpuss in the privacy of her own home. Now how about a nice industrial-strength smile? I can assure you that the Bureau of Feminist Rectitude will never hear about it from...