Amy Cunningham is an American journalist and essayist. Cunningham studied English at the University of Virginia and has been a freelance writer since she graduated in 1977. Cunningham wrote the essay Why Women Smile in 1993. Cunningham talked about how women, including herself have faced the same issues during the decades. Cunningham stated “American women’s smile often has less to do with their actual state of happiness than it does with the social pressure to smile no matter what” (page 191). Cunningham explained to us how American women often smile but most of the time it has nothing to do with their actual feelings because they’re being pressured by society to follow these standers no matter what situation they’re going through. However,
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Mothers always tell their daughters to smile, to look nice and to have manners. Since that moment women are built to follow certain stander and no matter what women always seemed to hide their emotions and put a fake smile on their faces as Cunningham stated in her essay Your real emotion aren’t welcome here (page 190). Lama Farhoud whom I interviewed for this essay had been through a similar experience and she was also pressured to smile and to act in a certain way for a different reason. Farhoud is a young lady about eighteen years who struggled to fit into society. Farhoud stated that it’s all started at home, when she was a little girl, her mother was telling her to follow the rules and to act like a lady. Farhoud also mentioned that her mother often told her to smile no matter what she was feeling based on that she learned to hide her feelings and to be herself. However Farhoud sometimes couldn’t control her emotion because she was having a bad day and she doesn’t want to smile, but she struggled because people around her were asking if she was doing alright which made her feel bad about herself because all she could figure is she wasn’t smiling. The fact that people judged her because she was showing her emotion is pathetic and she felt ridiculed. It’s fascinating what American women did to gain all the power and to have their rights, but they still not fully in charge of their emotion and when they would prefer to smile and when they wouldn’t. Cunningham stated, we still don’t seem to be fully in charge of a couple of small muscle groups in our faces. (Page
Mothers always tell their daughters to smile, to look nice and to have manners. Since that moment women are built to follow certain stander and no matter what women always seemed to hide their emotions and put a fake smile on their faces as Cunningham stated in her essay Your real emotion aren’t welcome here (page 190). Lama Farhoud whom I interviewed for this essay had been through a similar experience and she was also pressured to smile and to act in a certain way for a different reason. Farhoud is a young lady about eighteen years who struggled to fit into society. Farhoud stated that it’s all started at home, when she was a little girl, her mother was telling her to follow the rules and to act like a lady. Farhoud also mentioned that her mother often told her to smile no matter what she was feeling based on that she learned to hide her feelings and to be herself. However Farhoud sometimes couldn’t control her emotion because she was having a bad day and she doesn’t want to smile, but she struggled because people around her were asking if she was doing alright which made her feel bad about herself because all she could figure is she wasn’t smiling. The fact that people judged her because she was showing her emotion is pathetic and she felt ridiculed. It’s fascinating what American women did to gain all the power and to have their rights, but they still not fully in charge of their emotion and when they would prefer to smile and when they wouldn’t. Cunningham stated, we still don’t seem to be fully in charge of a couple of small muscle groups in our faces. (Page