My Mean Face

Apparently, it began as a joke; this PSA for bitchy resting face like it’s a medical problem, but millions of people have admitted to having this problem and now it’s my turn. I have bitchy resting face. And I know this because people tell me I do. They say it right to my bitch face.

The first time I remember being made aware of how horrible my face is, I was 13. For anyone just joining a civilized society, age 13 is the peak of girl’s self-esteem. You never feel better about how weird your body is getting, or more confident in every thing you say or do, the way you do when you’re 13.

My youth pastor took it upon himself to let me know how frightening I was and told me one night at church. After youth group, with all of my friends within ear shot, he told me that I had “a mean face.” Looking back at myself, I probably wasn’t as weird as I felt, but I wasn’t so comfortable with myself that I could brush off a comment like that.

A mean face. A mean face? What the fuck? I really don’t remember what had happened before or after, but I’d probably just listened to him talk about the teenage issues youth pastors discuss and was getting ready to get smoothies with my friends as was our routine, and suddenly I was jolted out of, what was presumably, a good mood (I may in fact be a bitch now, but I wasn’t then), and the age of innocence all because this guy, a grown man whose children I babysat on a regular basis, could barely look at my ghastly face without wanting to turn and run away.

All this time, I’ve thought I was alone in my plight. It’s been 14 years since he said this to me and even if you can’t read sarcasm you should be able to tell that this comment has stayed with me all this time. I haven’t obsessed, but it has been something I’ve thought of again and again; my mean face. And I believed I was the only one with this problem. But I’m not! It isn’t just me!

This PSA Taylor Orci created in May suggests this is natural and normal for lots of people, and not just women. I first heard about it from a male makeup artist, who talked about his own bitchy resting face and being stopped on the street by total strangers who tell him to “cheer up” or ask “are you mad?” an experience I can relate to. More often though, I think my bitchy resting face acts as a deterrent to people who would say something and then decided, based on the big “fuck off” my face transmits, better not. Just a few weeks ago, I was in line for a rental car and the girl at the counter was chatting with everybody. In a line of 3 people, I waited 25 minutes to get my car because she couldn’t let anyone leave without talking about everything she could think of until they were practically out the door and she was still shouting directions to her favorite restaurant at them. But when I got up there, no niceties. No chitchat. Just the paperwork and thanks, get away. At this point though, my face was probably murderous because I was ready to kill her, but that’s neither here nor there. 

The worst of it, though, is that we’re expected to give some kind of response when someone says, “cheer up” or “smile, baby.” (I’ll point out right now, it’s to your detriment to call me baby whether I know you or not.) But no response will do. No one believes you when you say, “I’m not mad!” because there’s no way to say it to convince anyone. Plus, since they’ve zeroed in on you and called out your face, you’re mad! I am! I am mad when people do that! And no one likes to hear, “it’s just my face.” That as an answer is unacceptable. Surely something must be wrong. Surely you could change it. It’s not frozen that way; you could smile if you wanted to.

But you know what I would look like if I smiled all the time? Like I should be dragging a bloody axe or a severed head along with me. When I went home that night and told my Mom about the feedback I’d been given she said, “You know who smiles all the time? Crazy people. Crazy people smile all the time.” And she’s right! There are probably people in the world who have happy resting faces and smile no matter what, but I would be willing to attribute a constant smile to a constant supply of antidepressants.

What’s most troubling to me is the fact that I don’t smile all the time is, apparently, a serious reflection on me, and the millions of other women suffering from this. There’s obviously the social repercussions: people think I’m a sad, mean, crone. A big bitch. I now wonder how many potential friends have gotten away because of my face. But according to plenty of scientific studies of niceness, not smiling is a male trait. So my bitchy resting face, not only makes me look miserable, it makes me butch.

One hypothesis, actual science, the warmth affiliation account, says women are more naturally warm, expressive, and emotional. More research is needed to determine if women are born with stronger smiling equipment or if this is developed over a lifetime of “practice.” A second hypothesis, the dominance-status hypothesis is all about power dynamics. Women are socially weaker and thus wear their compliance on their faces. Smiling, thus, implies no desire on the part of the woman, who does it, to upset the status quo. Women who do not make waves smile. Women who do not have independent thought and moments of disagreement with others smile. Wicked, butch women do not smile. These are the women with bitchy resting face.

Whether people are familiar with these studies, is irrelevant because they are aware of their societal obligation to put up a front. Obviously nothing good can come from a woman who doesn’t smile and therefore, we must fix her face at once! Admittedly, there is nothing “wrong” with how this woman feels, but her face is so naturally unfortunate, it must be altered. A plastic surgeon in Michigan is cited as performing 1500 “expression surgeries a year, where he injects Botox into the corners of the mouth to relax the muscles that make some of us look so grumpy. 1500 a year! In Michigan! What are the countrywide numbers? Is having a bitchy resting face so awful we should be driven to Botox?

I don’t think so! No one has the right to question my state of anger on the street because I’m unpleasant for you to look at. There are worse things out there than me, but I don’t owe you anything. Not a smile, not an explanation, not a defense of my femininity, and certainly not a need to change because you can’t understand my face. I don’t smile naturally. I smile when I want to. When I see someone I’m happy to see, when I think of something funny, but not because it will make you feel better. Don’t give me the responsibility of dictating your happiness—it won’t go well for you.

And in spite of my youth pastors’ best attempt, I love my bitchy face. I love it because it’s mine. I’m not afraid of being seen as a bitch. I’m not even afraid of being a bitch. What’s wrong with being a bitch? I’ve always loved a good argument and there have always been people who pressure me to nice-up, to let them win; I can never manage it. And I get told off for being too blunt, too sharp, intimidating, and to be honest, I’ve spent the better part of a year thinking about what it means to be tactful, so as to get my point across without shredding another person. But those insults, those condemnations, could never make me feel as bad as I would if I compromised myself; if I “grinned” and bore it. So if I walk around like I own this city and can’t be bothered, it’s true. While you’re hiding from the scariest face you’ve ever seen up close, my bitch face and me have a life to live. Because as much as you wanted me to comply, old youth pastor, I won’t. Not for you.