Pop quiz! Do any of these apply to you?
Has a stranger ever told you to smile?
Do your kids ever ask you why you’re mad when you are sitting peacefully?
Has anyone ever said, “Wow, you’re actually not as mean as I thought you were before we met”?
Does your spouse ever ask you what’s wrong, when nothing is?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of the above, you may suffer from Resting B*tch Face. Other symptoms of RBF include being avoided in a public setting and occasionally frightening small children.
As a lifelong sufferer, it took me many years to put a name to this affliction. When I was younger, I remember a grocery store employee asking my mom, “Does she ever smile?” while I quietly wondered why he thought I was mad. In high school, my sister’s boyfriend asked me why I walked through the hallways with a “mean look” on my face (like I needed one more reason to feel insecure in high school). When my husband and I were newlyweds, we had several arguments that went like this:
Him: “What’s wrong with you?”
Me: “Nothing. Why?”
Him: “You have a terrible look on your face.”
Me: “This is just my face! Why’d you marry me if you don’t like my face?!” (I’m a real peach, as you can see.)
When I first I heard the expression RBF, I was relieved to know there were others like me. I like to think of fellow sufferers as an elite group characterized by our furrowed brows and frown lines. Even though we look like “Bs,” we’re usually not. Sometimes we’re not smiling because we’re thinking about important things, like what to make for dinner or whether anyone can see through our yoga pants. Sometimes we’re not smiling because our smiles look less like Julia Roberts’ and more like Chandler Bing’s. Sometimes it’s because we haven’t mastered Tyra Bank’s “smizing.” Either way, it’s important that you not judge these frowning books by their covers.
As I’ve grown older and more philosophical, the expression RBF has come to bother me more, because it’s a uniquely female criticism. If a man has a frown on his face, he’s thought of as pensive or reflective, not “mean” or “b*tchy.” There is no “Resting A-hole Face.” Perhaps this is because our society doesn’t take women as seriously as men, and therefore a serious expression on our faces is worthy of criticism. Or perhaps it’s because we value happiness over all other emotions and feel the need to call out expressions of what we perceive to be anger or frustration (for more information on this, go see Disney’s Inside Out).
Consider Hillary Clinton, whose serious expressions often cause her to be labeled as a shrew or a wench (or, as Saturday Night Live called her, a “boner-shrinker”). Whereas male presidential candidates Chris Christie and Rick Perry often have serious expressions, yet criticisms of them are generally limited to their politics. Look at Hollywood: Kristen Stewart = B, Robert Pattinson = thoughtful and dreamy. For ’90s TV watchers like me, Shannon Doherty = B, Luke Perry=pensive.
So let’s attempt to be more considerate to our frowning sisters. Let’s stop labeling each other as Bs. And even if we are, so what? In that words of the great Tina Fey, “B*tches get stuff done.”
