Synthesis and Paraphrasing

Why Women Smile by Amy Cunningham

In, her article titled, “Why Women Smile”, Amy Cunningham argues the value of the fake smile. The essay Why Women Smile addresses society's oppressive expectation placed on women, to forgo real emotions and plaster on a smile as the social norm (Miller, pp. 226). A woman understands that she expected to show happiness, joy, and a carefree attitude at all times so she will smile despite the emotional state she is in. This “smile burden”, as the author calls it, is oppressive to women because she cannot express her emotions as freely as a male can. The author demonstrates that a smiling has become a social norm through the example of a woman walking down the street lost in thought. Cunningham believes that in this situation it is not uncommon for a male to call out, “Hey baby, smile! Life's not that bad is it?” This proves she restricted from displaying what is going through her mind because the world only wishes to see her in a state of happiness (ibid). Men have the freedom to display fear, confusion, concentration, frustration, disgust, and sadness without care, while a woman limited to displaying only one emotion. Also, failure to smile can result in criticism in professional careers such as a waitress, personal assistant or receptionist.

People have not always smiled like we Americans do. Many American jobs mainly dominated by females, require the female to be extraordinarily friendly and smile almost the whole shift. Companies want smiling women because it makes the customer feel like they care, therefore, making that customer come back. In the piece, Cunningham explores many female subjugated jobs, “the waitress, the personal assistant or receptionist, the flight attendant, or any other woman in the line of public service whose smile not offered up to the boss or client as proof that there are no storm clouds, no kids to support, no sleep that has been missed rolling into the sunny workplace landscape. Women expected to smile no matter where they line up on the social, cultural, or economic ladder” (Hewstone, pp. 639). The sentences in this quote are very important to the overall point of writing. They make us apply this to our lives, thinking about who we see the smile at us, and how many of those smiles forced compared to how many of those smiles are legitimate.

“To limit a woman ...