'Bitchy resting face': what it is and why I have it

Have you ever heard the expression 'bitchy resting face'? I confess I hadn't, until I read a column by author Katie Roiphe in the latest (June 2016) issue of Red magazine. In said column, Katie was sticking up for her decision not to smile in photographs, at least not professional author ones. She had been criticised for looking 'icy', 'mean', 'intimidating' and 'aloof' on her book jackets, so her publishers wanted to make her look more approachable and likeable, hence her doing a new shoot, which still ended up producing unsmiling photos.

CONTEMPLATIVE: Katie Roiphe, author, who's accused of looking 'mean and intimidating'.  (photo: Jason Andrew)

Katie was questioning why women are always expected to smile. We all know plenty of celebs with 'BRF' who refuse to smile inanely at the camera: Victoria Beckham, Angelina Jolie, Cara Delevingne et al. I once read a magazine article that grouped celebs into two distinct categories, as if once they'd chosen their smile status, they had to stick to it for life, for fear of confusing anyone.

Katie also points out how Hillary Clinton had been admonished for not smiling more – as if that's the most important part about being a potential president! Male candidates – in fact males in general – are never scorned for not smiling. They are just thought of as 'brooding, serious, soulful'.
So why is it not OK for a woman to look serious and thoughtful, and instead be labeled bitchy when not grinning from ear to ear, even if she hasn't said anything of the sort?

This contemplation struck a real chord. While not having had the BRF label hurled at me, I have been told I look aloof on numerous occasions (and presumably way more people have thought it than have actually said it to my face). I'm often surprised to hear peoples' first impressions of me, as they differ so wildly from how I ever feel or think inside my heart and mind. Ever since I was a teenager, random people have told me to cheer up. My first job, working as a shop assistant in Top Shop and Top Man on weekends, included a variety of duties – answering the phone, manning the till, clearing the changing room rail – but one of them was purely just being on the shop floor, ready and eager to assist customers. As part time jobs go, it was a pretty good one, so I had no reason to be looking or feeling disgruntled. But so many times the manager or someone else would tell me to look happy, presumably thinking I wasn't presenting a great impression of the store! It always surprised me, as I was never in a 'down' mood to begin with so wasn't really sure how, exactly, to cheer up. So I began to study my face in the mirror. I realised that when I relax all my facial muscles, the line made by my lips actually turns down a bit in the corners. Also, my jaw is fairly square, front on. Both these attributes make me look, I suppose, a bit miserable.

BRF IS THE WORD! The best example of BRF I can find, pouting and attempting to look sexy, age 15, for my high school production of Grease (in my defence, everyone else on this photo looks equally hideous). 

And it wasn't just people in shops. Sometimes even strangers in the street – always men, some of whom are arrogant f**ks who think they have the right to tell young women what to do or be (she says between clenched teeth) – would shout out: 'Cheer up luv it might never happen'. Of course, at the time I never managed to think up a witty reply, so I'd either ignore it and walk on, or try to prove to them I wasn't moody by grinning (how I wish I'd glared at them and shouted: 'Well it has just happened as you have crossed my path!' then given them the finger).
A beloved English teacher wrote that I was 'aloof' on one of my school reports, which really hurt, and even my own husband tells me he thought I was an 'ice queen' on our first few dates (and yes I did smile at some point!). It's unfortunate, as I could be sitting contemplating something quite lovely, or just mulling over events of the day, and to someone else I look miserable and 'hard'. 

To counteract my natural BRF, I now put on a semi-smile at times, where the corners of my mouth and cheek muscles are active just enough to make the line of my lips straight. The up-side is that I look more approachable; the down side is I've created permanent wrinkles around my mouth by always using these muscles (though they're far less bothersome than the noticeable frown lines between my eyes, and the horizontal line deepening above my left eyebrow – the one I can raise independently to make an even more 'bitchy quizzical face').

MODEL BRF: Aged 24, modelling for the Telegraph in Sydney - throwing in the questioning left eyebrow for good measure!

I wonder whether Mona Lisa put on a semi smile to hide a naturally BRF? Whether she did it consciously or not, it turned her into the most famous painted woman of all time. Although she's not grinning exactly, everyone is drawn to her enigmatic 'half smile', while few remember any of the portraits of other aristocratic women, who always look so severe and, therefore, less attractive.

SEMI SMILE: The mini 'smile' I have to do just to not look grumpy (aged 26, before the wrinkles emerged!)

'There must be a mood short of overwhelmingly sunny that does not signify aggression? Surely one can be intelligent, clever, powerful or, you know, thinking without being "bitchy",' says Katie. I agree! Why must women always be expected to look joyous and happy just to make everyone else (by that I mean mostly men) feel good about themselves?
And anyway, there is one place where it's definitely good not to smile all the time: a job interview. Having conducted plenty of them, it's sad to say that the candidates who smile inanely and laugh nervously between questions do themselves a disservice in that they come across as silly and not professional, even though I can see on paper that they are totally competent. Lots of laughter and smiling definitely work in your favour on a date, but not in interviews. And, thinking about it, I've been successful at 10 out of 14 job interviews so far, from bar work up to editing national magazines, which isn't bad going. So perhaps my BRF is not such a bad thing after all.

What do you think? let me know in your comments below...

A neat way to deal with work stress

It's all to easy to let the daily pressures of work get to you (and by 'you' of course I'm referring to me!). With people requesting things of you all the time, added to an already full schedule and then unplanned email conversations that can end up taking up to an hour, meaning you get being on your 'to do' list, it's no wonder we don't all go crazy. Even if you have a great job, as I do, things can sometimes just feel like too much. 

So today, which was one of 'those days' as outlined above, I read with interest my horoscope from Daily Om (www.dailyom.com) as it provided the antidote to work stress, and is an  idea I'll be trying out tomorrow! 

I hope they won't mind me publishing it on here. Anyone interested in horoscopes might like to sign up to this service as it's free and, I find, often spookily accurate about the day's events (and I usually read them AFTER the working day, so they don;t have an impact on how things pan out). 

November 22, 2012
Equilibrium through Play
Scorpio Daily Horoscope
"A mischievous mood can strike suddenly today, whether you are surrounded by loving relatives or interacting with professional colleagues. Your feelings can inspire you to try to amuse others by telling funny stories, playing practical jokes, or performing magic tricks (Katy's notes: there were no magic tricks, but I did regale my colleagues - the ones, like me, who were yet again staying late - with a tale from the Hay House I Can Do It conference, where Robert Holden, author of Be Happy, questioned why, when asked how we are, we often reply 'getting there' - where exactly is 'there', he queried? We've turned into a nation who rush from this to that - but I digress, back to the horoscope). 


The more we integrate play into our lives, the easier it is for us to achieve a balanced lifestyle. So much is stressful in our lives, and it can be difficult to fit time for relaxation into our schedules. Play, which we often engage in with others as a social activity, can represent the perfect antidote to the one-sided aspects of the modern world. As we enjoy our favourite recreational activities, whatever their nature, our minds are transported to a place where we needn’t consider success or failure absolutes. We can immerse ourselves in the unfamiliar, content to experience something new without feeling pressured to get it right the first time or outperform our adversaries. The games you play today will help you spend more time engaging in activities that help you recover from the rigours of your responsibilities."

Good advice indeed. Time to take a more light-hearted approach to things. After all, nothing we do much matters at the end of the day. If something truly important transpires, or 'blindsides you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday' as film director Baz Luhrmann says in his Sunscreen song of 1999, then we ditch the everyday work routine and rush to whatever emergency is taking place; and work, strangely enough, always gets done. So, here's to more fun :-)

How do you want to grow old?

Can you bypass ill health and grow old gracefully? A walk in the park causes Katy to ponder the ageing process, and how a lot of it is determined by our attitude towards getting older, and the thoughts we think

Yesterday as I was wandering through Abby fields in Colchester - part of an epic walk from one end of the town to the other, just to take a lamp to be fixed - I passed a lady whom I'd guess was probably in her late 60s; she had sleek, grey hair cut into a bob, smart sunglasses, and a confident air. Something about her made me stand up straighter, take deep breathes and hold my shoulders back. I had a thought, albeit fleeting, that I'd like to grow old and look like her. Now, I don't know what her life is actually like as we never got talking, but looked healthy and happy.
At the same time I spied her, I was pulling my iPhone out of my pocket, which at that very moment began playing a track from a talk by Louise Hay about growing older - I must have pressed a button accidentally, though I thought it was locked. (on that note, I've noticed a number of times how it seems to pick out songs that seem relevant to the moment; not so long ago I was sure the device was warning me off seeing a certain man, as it kept selecting tracks at poignant moments to do with being broken hearted; turns out it was probably right, but that's another story...)

choose how you age...
Anyway, Louise Hay's talk, given some 6-7 years ago, was about how she wants to create a community called 'Elders of Excellence'. She says that though we all get older, we have a large part to play in the process and must all take responsibility for our health. She also points out that whatever age you deem to be 'middle age', is when you will begin to deteriorate physically, which is an idea also espoused by Deepak Chopra, author of Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, who says we can change our very DNA through our thoughts, and that we, not doctors, are the ones who heal ourselves.
Anyway, I found it somewhat synchronous that within seconds I'd seen a healthy elderly lady, who just by virtue of passing by had caused me to consider my own health and longevity, and at the same time my iPod chose to play Louise Hay's words echoing my own thoughts.

no excuses
As it happened, I had just been for a jog - making the most of the glorious sunny autumn day - and had included some high intensity interval training, which is basically short, intense bursts of activity, such as jumps, sprints, press ups etc, followed by a short rest period.
Having just switched from editing Soul&Spirit to Bodyfit, my thougths are naturally turning more towards my physical and not just emotional and spiritual self, and I've made the commitment to not only strengthen my muscles and increase my cardiovascular health, but to increase my flexibility so I'm able to do the splits - I've given myself 12 months to achieve the latter. And I now believe it's possible. Deepak, Louise, Wayne Dyer and a number of other spiritual gurus all tell us the same thing: that if you believe something, you can achieve it and experience it. For years I held the limiting belief of "I'm not flexible". Well, as Wayne would say, whatever you put after the words 'I am' is critical to success or failure (for more on this, see his latest book Wishes Fulfilled, which is one of the best on manifesting that I've ever read). So, by saying, 'I am not flexible' I was enforcing that belief. However, last year I got sent the updated version of Vanda Scaravelli's Awakening the Spine, and was amazed and encouraged by images of this slight, 90-year-old woman putting her feet behind her head and bending into the most incredible postures. And she only began yoga in her forties. I also watched some Youtube videos of women who've taught their bodies to do the splits in just a few months by practising each day. So, no more excuses for me....

healthy mind = healthy body
What we do with our bodies and minds, not to mention what we put into them, IS our choice. We choose what to eat, drink and think. but it's a daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute practise. I won't get flexible overnight; progress, in any area of life, is often made by taking constant, continuous, little-by-little steps.
But the combination of seeing the elegant lady, hearing Louise's talk, and recalling Vanda's book all motivate me to take healthy actions so that, hopefully, I live to a ripe old age. I plan to be doing yoga - and the splits - in my nineties, and I have a feeling I'm going to grow old disgracefully, in that I'll be far less stressed and worried about what other people think by then. Though I do wish my grey hairs would hold off for another decade or so until I'm really ready for them!