{"id":67865,"date":"2015-09-22T09:33:38","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T14:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=67865"},"modified":"2017-09-17T20:32:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T01:32:42","slug":"serena-williams-responds-to-the-smile-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2015\/09\/22\/serena-williams-responds-to-the-smile-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams responds to the “Smile!” treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Serena Williams, the winner of 21 Grand Slam titles and arguably the greatest living female athlete, was understandably exhausted after defeating her sister and best friend Venus Williams in the U.S. Open earlier this week. So she wasn\u2019t having it when, during a post-match press conference on Tuesday, a reporter had the gall to ask why she wasn\u2019t smiling.<\/p>\n

Williams looked down and gave an exasperated sigh before shelling out the best response<\/a> an athlete has given in an interview since football player Marshawn Lynch\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m just here so I won\u2019t get fined\u201d <\/a>trademark phrase.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 11:30. To be perfectly honest with you, I don\u2019t want to be here. I just want to be in bed right now and I have to wake up early to practice and I don\u2019t want to answer any of these questions. And you keep asking me the same questions. It\u2019s not really \u2026 you\u2019re not making it super enjoyable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-Xv1e5U0g_g[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

Nervous laughter may have broken out in the crowd, but what Williams expressed wasn\u2019t a joke. All women are expected to perform femininity at the cost of being their authentic selves in the public sphere. Williams had just experienced what was likely one of the most emotionally and physically draining matches in her career. Taking on your sister in a high-stakes game isn\u2019t easy. She had told<\/a> the Associated Press before her win:<\/p>\n

She\u2019s the toughest player I\u2019ve ever played in my life and the best person I know. It\u2019s going against your best friend and at the same time going against the greatest competitor, for me, in women\u2019s tennis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It makes sense that she would not be smiling ear-to-ear during the media conference. But it turns out no matter how insanely accomplished or famous you become, you will still be subjected to the innocuous-sounding but ever-so-pernicious \u201cwhy don\u2019t you smile?\u201d interjection from those who feel entitled to make demands of women. Williams\u2019 retort was her attempt at dismantling that sense of entitlement. For those who say the reporter\u2019s question was a harmless jest, they should ask themselves if Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal would ever be expected to defend their stern or tired expressions.<\/p>\n

And the problem exists not just in the image-heavy world of professional sports. On Wednesday, Apple did little to change the public\u2019s perception of the tech industry as a sexist one. During a launch presentation in San Francisco, the first woman to be seen on stage at the male-dominated event wasn\u2019t a keynote speaker or even a presenter, but a model in a magazine photo. Adobe\u2019s director of design used her image to show off the Photoshopping capabilities of the new iPad Pro.<\/p>\n

What did he decide to Photoshop one might ask? A smile onto her face.<\/a> He could have altered literally any aspect of any image he wanted but decided instead to force a woman\u2019s visage into a grin.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

What happened at the tennis conference and the tech launch are symptoms of the same problem. Women, whether athletes or models, are often seen as products. They\u2019re meant to be consumed and enjoyed, and expressions of personality \u2014 like not constantly grinning \u2014 distract from their role as ornaments.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the reason projects like Stop Telling Women to Smile<\/a> by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh have cropped up to address the microaggressions women face on a daily basis. Women don\u2019t exist to smile for men and aren\u2019t obligated to present a cheerful disposition to the world. To expect that denies us our humanity and only reinforces male privilege.<\/p>\n

Anita Little\u00a0is the associate editor at\u00a0<\/i>Ms., where this post originally appeared<\/a>. You can follow her on\u00a0<\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Serena Williams, the winner of 21 Grand Slam titles and arguably the greatest living female athlete, was understandably exhausted after defeating her sister and best friend Venus Williams in the U.S. Open earlier this week. So she wasn\u2019t having it when, during a post-match press conference on Tuesday, a reporter had the gall to ask […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":68039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[279,55,2096,2093,2098,23680,8092,290,108],"class_list":["post-67865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-objectification","tag-gender","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-objectification","tag-gender-prejudicediscrimination","tag-gender-sexism","tag-gender-sports","tag-sciencetechnology","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2015\/09\/84.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67865"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71761,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67865\/revisions\/71761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}