Resting Bitch Face And Intersectionality

[joreth]

While it's not usually a good idea to hijack a thread talking about oppression of one class for another, this one explicitly asked the question if another class experienced anything similar.  Since oppression is about one group of people benefiting off other classes, the tools of oppression are often similar from one class to another.  A lot of what is done to women to keep us "in our place" is also done to people of color to keep them in "their place".  And intersectionality is when several axis of oppression cross and the tools are used doubly or triply to keep people in "their place" because they belong to multiple classes that all get held down.

Don't tell people to smile (unless you're a photographer and it's your job to get happy pictures).  Nobody exists to look pleasantly at you.  Nobody needs to gain your approval for existing in public or in the space they occupy (unless it's legitimately your personal, private space).

Y'all think you can read emotions on people, but you can't.  There are some great studies out there that show we are absolutely terrible at reading other people's emotions.  Not smiling does not equal "angry" or "sad".  Not smiling is merely an absence of emoting happiness, it is not the *opposite* of happiness.  You need other cues for emoting non-happiness emotions.

But, as atheists have been trying to explain forever, the absence of a thing does not mean the presence of the opposite thing.
 
And even if it did, it's none of your fucking business anyway.