Smiling is something we’re all programmed to do. We smile when we receive a present and say thank you, we smile when someone brings us a coffee, we smile when something good happens and sometimes when something bad happens because we don’t know what else to do. We smile, but we smile of our own accord, because we want to.
Recently, Athlete, Olympian, vault and floor gymnast 2016 medallist, Simone Biles, was asked why she didn’t ‘smile’ on _Dancing with the Star_s by host Tom Bergeron. During the comments section (when the stars hear their feedback from the judges) Simone (who was probably A. exhausted from all that dancing, B. focusing on the comments, not on smiling and C. mabye didn’t feel particularly like smiling) Did. Not. Smile. To which Bergeron said ‘I was waiting to see you smile at some of the compliments, you didn’t.’ Ugh.
Simone, then smiled, and said ‘smiling doesn’t win you gold medals.’ Which is, quite possibly, the best answer to pretty much any question.
Her comeback not only reflects the confidence of a young woman who knows her worth, it claps back at any person who has told any woman to smile more. Simone is an athlete, an absolutely incredible, strong, determined athlete who has already had an amazing career and will, no doubt, continue to do so. Smiling doesn’t even need to come into that. Had that have been a man, would the host have commented on his lack of smile? Probably not, because he would have been focusing on his dancing and athletic abilities to perform the complex moves.
So why doesn’t Simone get the same treatment? In asking why she didn’t smile, it’s implying that she needs to be visibly seen to respond to the compliments in a certain way. So what if she was actually super focused and engaged, taking in every single comment one by one to ensure that next time she performed on Dancing with the Stars she had bettered her performance? Not smiling must make her ‘hostile,’ ‘unfriendly,’ or simply ‘rude,’ yet it’s hard to imagine a male being called out for not cracking a smile. When women don't smile, people notice, people care. And herein lies the issue.
After Hillary Clinton gave a speech during her presidential campaign, MSNBC host, Joe Scarborough tweeted ‘Smile. You just had a big night. #PrimaryDay.’
This kind of casual sexism undermines Hilary’s abilities, like asking why Simone didn’t smile does. The victory was a reflection of her working abilities, not her smile. This type of behaviour is something women have to put up with on a daily basis, from colleagues in meetings to strangers calling us out for looking miserable when we should be happy – and we’re tired of it.
Smiling is something we all do, and there’s nothing wrong with it, if it comes from a place of honesty and at our own accord. It shouldn’t, however, be treated as a given. We smile, when we want to smile, in our own time, of our own accord. Just like we all did when we watched Simone respond Bergeron with her amazing comeback.
Like this? You might also be interested in…
Here’s Some Proof That Gymnast Simone Biles At Rio Is Everything You Need In Your Life
The Sexism At The Olympics Is Getting Out Of Hand. But Twitter’s Fighting Back
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.