Khawaja 1

Usama Elahi Khawaja

Mahrukh Baig

SS-100 Writing and Communication

21 November 2017

Critique: Why Women Smile by Amy Cunningham

Amy Cunningham in “Why Women Smile” puts forth her assertion that women smile more

than men and that their smiles are a misrepresentation of the actual emotion but are rather a way

to gain approval from society. Amy wrote her essay in Lear’s, a magazine with women as the

target audience. her essay was written in 2004, a time when women rights and progressive ideas

were starting to shake the norms of society. At a time when society was starting to evolve, with

increased women participation in politics, business and in society, Amy raised a very thought-

provoking idea and explored how women have become accustomed to fake smiles that have little

value or affect. Her audience of above middle aged mature American women are more likely to

relate to her ideas rather than young women. Amy explores the idea of how society has taken

women’s smiles for granted. Though the essay is coherent and makes use of logical evidences the

essay draws too many generalizations.

In “why women smile” Amy Cunningham tries to show how society has influenced women

to smile through all emotions without being able to express exactly how they feel. Women’s

feelings of insecurity and a constant need of approval have led to women putting on their fake

smiles which, Amy argues, do no good to society nor to women. Amy tries to persuade women to

smile not for approval but for their own contentment. She wants American women to stop catering

to the expectations of society and instead become more expressive of their feelings instead of
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hiding their emotions behind fake smiles. She tries to get women to understand that they need to

take full control of their bodies.

To bring coherence and structure to her essay Amy uses a chronological order to explain

how smiles have been used over the years. She gives strong support to her argument by linking

monkeys and babies to smiles, showing how from the very first day that babies are born, they smile

due to joy and happiness. From the golden age of the Dutch republic to the Nike commercials

being played today Amy compares how the smile of women has always been expected regardless

of how they feel. For Amy the fake smile is a sign of lost control over one’s self. “Despite all the

work we American women have done to get and maintain full legal control of our bodies, not to

mention our destinies, we still don't seem to be fully in charge of a couple of small muscle groups

in our faces.” Amy draws analogy between the fake smile of women to women’s rights clearly

pointing out how women aren’t mentally free yet and still live in the pressures imposed by society.

For Amy a smile holds more value than just showing comfort and happiness. It’s a tool to

demonstrate one’s ability to express themselves, be authoritative and not live in the shadow of

others. Amy uses the first person to write this essay to add credibility to her argument. Reading a

first-hand experience allows the reader to be easily persuaded since it brings the feeling of almost

knowing the author and builds a reader-writer relationship which goes a long way in building the

trust needed to persuade the audience of what the author has to say. She uses anecdotes to narrate

experiences of how society has come to expect women to smile which increases the credibility of

the evidences given. Amy uses profound and concise language which demonstrates her argument

in a clear manner leaving nothing to ambiguity. Her clever use of analogies to link the value of a

fake smile when she says that “To limit a woman to one expression is like editing down an

orchestra to one instrument.” Amy organizes her essay around a chronological order to show how
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women have always been expected to smile in every society dating back hundreds of years. This

allows for a central theme around which her essay is based and captivates the intrigued reader to

learn about how smiles have been used in history. Amy uses pathos throughout her essay. She uses

the example of how a smile is the first thing a baby is associated with. This adds an emotional

appeal to the essay and tries to justify how smiles are first and foremost associated with being

happy and comfortable and to use that smile to mask any other emotion is wrong and hurtful to

one’s self. Amy tries to emotionally appeal to her middle-aged women audience by giving babies

as an example assuming her audience to consist of mothers who would feel the connection to her

point. She makes use of ethos in her evidences by referring to psychiatrist’s studies of how the

actual state of happiness, of joy merits only the true smile and any fake smile is easily detectable.

Quoting from a person of authority adds credibility to her argument. Amy uses variations in her

tone and language to convince her audience. To get her point across she sometimes uses harsher

tone as when she says, “Woe to the waitress, the personal assistant or receptionist, the flight

attendant, or any other woman in the line of public service whose smile is not offered up to the

boss or client…” this kind of tone looks to gain sympathy for women who are unable to express

their emotions due to society. Amy’s clever use of real life situations and examples where women

are expected to smile allows her audience to easily imagine the situation that women are put into

and can relate to in their own lives. To support her argument of why women shouldn’t always

smile to please others, Amy gives the example of how “Women weren't always expected to seem

animated and responsive; in fact, immoderate laughter was once considered one of the more

conspicuous vices a woman could have, and mirth was downright sinful.” This provides her

audience a different perspective showing how smiling women wasn’t always approved by society.

Making use of the chronological order Amy shows how the smile evolved in different times from
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being an intimate thing to becoming a required social display. Amy uses this transition in

chronology to make her audience realize how the smile wasn’t always performing the function that

it is performing now. Amy’s use of phrases like “"a woman's face is her work of fiction” allow her

to captivate her audience and lead them to believe that a fake smile actually shows the hypocrisy

in women. Amy tries to persuade using logical evidences which draw too many generalizations.

Individual instances of people judging women and calling them out because of an absence of smile

doesn’t provide strong support for Amy’s argument, yet Amy uses these individual instances to

assume the entire society to be as judgmental and expecting of women to smile. In her essay Amy

also weakens her argument by going off track and talking about how Americans in general are

smiling more than people from other parts of the world. This goes against the very idea that

American women smile more than men, something that Amy based her whole essay around.

Amy Cunningham’s clever use of language and analogies allow her to write a powerful

essay. Her directness in language makes her argument persuasive. Multiple evidences of how

women are expected to smile in daily life situations give very valid and credible support to her

argument. Valid facts and studies by people with knowledge on the topic makes the essay well

structured with enough evidence to convince the reader of her argument. She uses all three modes

of persuasion, ethos, pathos, logos to convince the readers of her argument. She uses pathos to the

greatest effect by linking how the most genuine smiles come from monkeys i.e. from where

evolution started and from babies. She uses these examples effectively by linking smiles to their

original use to show happiness instead of masking other emotions behind a fake one. At a time

when women rights and feminism show women’s rising authority, this essay allows women to take

a step back and realize that maybe they’re still not as independent as they seem to think so. This

essay explores a new dimension to a current issue of women starting to take control of their lives.
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In the dynamic society that we live in, with trends and roles changing, women have become

more integral to society than they ever were, and this essay provides an entirely different

perspective and due to its relevance currently evokes a strong response. With women becoming

more and more active in society this essay provides them with a thought provoking idea of how if

they need to become strong and independent then they need to stop pleasing society and express

their emotions. Amy uses an anecdote to show how people associate her with her smile. “one says,

"I associate you with your smile. It's the essence of you. I should think you'd want to smile more!"”

Well, this is a very weak support for her argument as this doesn’t only happen to women. A smiling

man would also receive the same treatment. The author’s example of the baby is by far the

strongest evidence supporting her argument as a crying baby would never smile, hence the genuine

smile is only that of comfort and happiness and not fear or insecurity. The text felt somewhat

biased as it quoted Paul Ekman a psychologist stating the effect of fake smiles as “False ones do

nothing for us at all” although he later found out that though the real smile brings positivity, the

fake ones also lift mood and make people happy. Failure to include this part of Paul’s research

shows a very biased perspective, one that is both misinformed and incorrect but one that works

very well for Amy’s argument. Amy talks about how the smile evolved over the years but an

integral part to women smiling is due to the different cultures and religions. Using different

cultures and religions to show what smiles meant for certain people would have given her argument

more credibility. It would make her essay well rounded. Amy’s argument lacks specificity and she

generalized all women without making distinction between women from different religions.

Muslim women hardly use their smile as open social display rather its reserved for people closest

to them. The author’s bias makes women sound easier to influence although the famous proverb

“men don’t cry” indicates that men hide their true emotions more than women. It is in fact not
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down to gender but to the human nature that makes people hide their emotions behind the fake

smiles. So, generalizing the fake smile for all women isn’t true. Insecurity isn’t for one gender.

Men also suppress their emotions behind a smile. Amy should have added depth to her essay by

comparing men and women to make her argument persuasive.

Amy’s argument that women smile more than men makes too many generalizations that

weakens the validity of the argument. Strong evidences are overshadowed by the logical fallacies

that weakens the entire argument. The directness of the language makes the text effective and with

a women audience, Amy’s essay is very effective in terms of getting her message of women not

being in full control of their body and actions through. A coherent essay with a tone that resonates

sympathy for women is overshadowed by weak logical fallacies that draw too many conclusions

based on isolated instances that weaken the argument. Nonetheless, the essay serves its purpose

for its target audience of women.