We all know as Black Women that we live in a world of double standards where more is expected of us than others. When a Black Woman shows any type of emotion, they are rarely validated and are more often than not, dismissed. Personally, even being shy in my younger years, I know that I was perceived as ‘stuck up’ or ‘rude’ at times because I was a Black girl.
Non-black women are allowed to be multidimensional people with valid feelings about wrongdoing done or said against them but us? our only crime appears to be that we’re not seen as soft and therefore not worth the defence when exhibiting negative emotions.
I’ve recently come across a range of videos online, mostly of West African brides:
Some of the brides appear to be stressed/upset and because the accounts were West African, the videos were not framed negatively. They had wholesome titles like ‘When you are stressed but things change once you see your big brother’. Many of the women in the comments could relate and spoke about how stressful a wedding day can be but of course, when such content goes viral, you will get the opinions of all. Unsurprisingly, Western (mainly Black men) had to chip in with their negativity around feeling sorry for the women’s husbands or the typical bs about femininity and the power of a smile.
It is very evident that when a Black Woman is mad/stressed/upset and is exhibiting anything other than a smile, people assume that, that is her character; situational stress doesn’t apply to Black Women and that’s just our baseline at all times.
As I’ve noted in previous articles on Misogynoir, the core of misogynoir amongst men is that we do not behave how they would like. I think seeing a Black Woman not smiling triggers men because it shows that we are autonomous beings who don’t have to alter ourselves to appease men. Men, especially Black Men (who have little control in many areas) want to dictate how Black Women should behave, including smiling to appear approachable and friendly. When we don’t conform to these expectations, it creates discomfort and insecurity. As I’ve stated before, we are the least appeasing race of women, we don’t pacify men’s ego. In an environment where she ought to be happy like a wedding, it just brings up those emotions and resentment that men have toward Black Women regarding their inability to control our behaviour (hence why African men were less triggered than Western men because they still have that control although this is/will change).
I’m not one to dwell on the double standards Black Women constantly face but I think it’s important to call it out and even be aware of where we have internalised biased views about other BW. Black Women are multidimensional and should be allowed to express a range of emotions without judgment!
OTN
2 thoughts on “Is anything more triggering than when a Black Woman doesn’t smile?”
I was just thinking abiut this topic and good responses to “you should smile more.”
I like saying:
Tell me a joke
You should talk less
Do you always order people around like that?
Another great take! Though I would say all races of women get some pushback if they don’t smile but BW get 10x the hate regarding this.
I was wondering: have you seen the viral tiktok trend “black wife effect”? If you did, could you write an article with your take on it? You’re just spot on on everything. I’ve learned so much through this blog. I think it would have taken me years to figure out what you write so gracefully here.