White male seeking understanding

[xoder]

So I was reading an Ask Metafilter question about being asked to smile. The thread is interesting but devolves into a giant "Men Are Pigs" fest. The operative theory being that men think women should be pretty no matter what, therefore they should smile all the time. In addition, the smiling somehow reinforces their submission to the males. Personally, I don't think I've ever asked anyone to smile, of either gender, but I often try to cheer people up through silliness and absurdity—occasionally to bad result. Given the initial question at AskMeFi, however, how does the answering public become so certain that the poster is female and is being told by males to smile? (Ignore, for the moment, that the poster marked a response as "Best Answer" pretty much declaring what the previous posters suspected.)

On a slightly related note: (most, if not all of) you know that I'm a tall, white male. That said, I feel very vulnerable telling women I find them attractive, as the song notes suggest I do. Perhaps its from the culture at RIT, where women could bring men up on "looking" charges and then those men could get expelled (although extremely unlikely—forced letters of apology and probation were much more common). Perhaps it's just plain old fear of rejection. Who knows. But I ask you, my reading public (which has many women in it), how do I avoid the first kind of repercussions (the latter, I have only myself to blame, I know)?

And on a related note to that last related note: most of the shame I feel from my eyes catching on attractive women for as long as is "safe" is mostly due to the fact that I feel I am consuming a resource (looking at an attractive person) and not contributing resources back to the "ogling pool", if one exists.

Thanks to s00j's K for giving me that second idea to think upon and ruminiate on since Lunacon '06. And thaanks to Sooj herself for the song which gave me the impetus to actually write out the thoughts I was having.

Comments

[codepoet.livejournal.com]

Because that's totally going to solve anything.

[ellf.livejournal.com]

Not sure if you caught the reference, but Susan Faludi is a feminist author whose take on feminism I generally agree with. Angus Young fantasies aside, I feel that exposure to a view of feminism that isn't mired in 1970s social theory -would- solve quite a few things up there.

[codepoet.livejournal.com]

Angus Young fantasies aside, I totally agree with you. At least, as much as I can say that without reading Susan Faludi.

Well, depending on what sort of free-from-1970s feminism we're talking about -- but any kkind would probably be better than the one we see most often now. ;)