As Hillary Clinton was giving her victory speech after Tuesday night’s primaries, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough tweeted out two sentences that nearly every American woman has heard some version of at one point in her life:

Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) Smile. You just had a big night. #PrimaryDay

Women on the internet were, to put it lightly, not amused. Many took Scarborough on immediately; even Full Frontal host Samantha Bee responded by replying with a picture of her not-so-smiling face.



This meme-able moment is part of a broader trend this election season: as the explicit sexism we saw during Clinton’s 2008 run has mostly been quelled or deemed unacceptable, women are pushing back against less easy-to-name offenses. And the visceral response against Scarborough demonstrates just how tired women are of having to explain how sexism operates over and over again.

Of all the things women hear from men – whether street harassers or pundits – there is special disdain for “smile” because of its particular condescension, and the tired trope that women should be forever chipper even as they’re walking down the street or, you know, running for president of the United States. In fact, men telling women to smile is such a universally hated prompt that there are feminist art projects dedicated to it, Buzzfeed lists that outline imagined responses (“just fart instead”), and a popular Broad City gif of the lead characters responding to a stranger’s insistence that they put on a happy face.

But it hasn’t been just Scarborough’s poorly thought-out tweet that women have found familiar. There are certain phrases, sentiments and actions that might not seem gendered upon first glance but are so typical to women’s everyday experience of sexism that they rub a lot of us the wrong way.



When Bernie Sanders snapped at Clinton for interrupting him, for example, sniping, “Excuse me, I’m talking,” a conversation erupted about whether the line was sexist. Taken on its own, pushing back against a debate partner that interrupts you seems innocuous. Sanders supporters insisted that he was rightfully calling out her rudeness (even though one analysis shows that Sanders interrupts Clinton at a rate three times higher than she interrupts him). But for women who have heard men get irritated with their strongly held opinions again and again – whether in the workplace or their personal lives – the moment bristled.

The same is true for the way that Sanders repeatedly jabs his finger in the air and in Clinton’s direction – it reminds some women of the aggressive way some men invade their personal space, and that a woman who gesticulated so wildly would likely be accused of having some sort of mental breakdown.

Scarborough’s response to the ire his tweet caused is also notable – that he “doesn’t look at HRC as a woman”. In his mind, and many others’, the most feminist or equitable thing to do is to not think about gender when responding to a candidate. Not only is this a bit shallow-minded – we all have hidden biases whether we think about them or not. It’s also irresponsible. Part of being a deft politician, pundit or public figure who cares about women’s rights is recognizing that the things you say to women have a much different context than if you were to say the same thing to a man.

Commenting on a male politician’s suit, for example, doesn’t hold the same diminishing effect that describing a female candidate’s clothing does. One study found that descriptions of women candidates’ appearances hurt their chances with voters, for example.

The staying power of this particular kind of less explicit sexism is discouraging, to be sure, but may be helpful to Clinton should she run in the general election, especially as it seems her opponent will almost certainly be a man for whom all types of sexism comes easily. Women are tired of being told to smile while watching their male counterparts get away with things they could never dream of. Let’s see if that sexism fatigue makes its way to the voting booth – I think it will.