“Smile!” “What’s wrong?” “Dang, you look mad.”
These are just a few of the sentences that I hear on a regular basis. I discovered I have what is known as RBF (or resting bitch face) a few months into college. Multiple people have told me that they thought I was mean before they got to know me just because I had an “angry” face. I am often catching myself telling people, "Oh that’s just my face,” reflexively without even thinking about the words that are coming out of my mouth. I never really thought much of it, and actually had come to terms with the fact that I had RBF.
Recently I read an article by IFL Science in which it discussed some of the science behind the term RBF (i.e. people with naturally turned down faces and underlying emotions). I then started reading other articles about RBF, and suddenly it hit me—the majority of these articles were about girls. Hence the ‘B’ in RBF. I wanted to test this theory out on my own just to see the results, so I posted a poll on my Facebook page asking people to like my status if they had ever been told to smile more or that they had RBF. Out of the 44 people that responded, only six of them were guys. That’s only, roughly, 14 percent!
This then made me wonder, why is it that people only seem to care when girls aren’t smiling. If you look up the Urban Dictionary definition of resting bitch face it reads: A person, usually a girl, who naturally looks mean when her face is expressionless, without meaning to. Nah, she’s just got a resting bitch face, she’s actually really sweet.
So clearly this term was deemed for women. The only strong male example that tends to pull up when you search the term is Kanye West, who is known for constantly looking angry.
So, again, I ask why does no one care that guys don’t smile (besides Kanye)? Why are girls expected to smile more and be more cheerful? Also, why do those two things have to necessarily go hand-in-hand? There have been countless times where I have been having a great day, and then someone asks me why I am upset. I wasn’t upset, at least until they asked me why I was upset. Can we, as women, not have a good day without wearing a permanent smile on our faces?
I shouldn't have to smile more just because other people think that this is the norm, and neither should anyone else. We should be able to regulate our facial expressions as we please. It’s about time that people learn to separate someone not smiling, and someone being angry into different categories. One does not necessarily mean the other. Also, while they’re at it, people need to learn to separate the 'bitch' out of resting bitch face and stop expecting women to constantly be smiling.
I just have a resting face, not a resting bitch face. I can have a naturally resting face without being a bitch. People always say don’t take things at face value, but it seems that they never actually follow through with this mantra.
