A woman was expected to smile, and not give speeches.
Caked in makeup, girls are expected to smile pleasingly throughout their routines.
So when one musician explains how women were expected to smile throughout a performance, her comment is followed by a montage of horn and trumpet players hilariously struggling to comply.
As a parent, I'm expected to smile serenely as I pour the wine and rush the baked rolls to the table, as I sign "Santa" on every package, then join my children in marveling at his generosity.
Germany is expected to smile on Britain's bid to apply EU justice and home-affairs rules selectively, for example.The contrast with Peer Steinbrück, her centre-left opponent, only increases Mrs Merkel's appeal.
So when we read, in "The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine" (Gotham; $27.50), Rudolph Chelminski's forthcoming biography of the doomed three-star chef Bernard Loiseau, the story of Loiseau's restless search for a way to transform cauliflower from a discouraging vegetable into a radiant side dish by caramelizing it, we smile at first, and are expected to smile.
When people ask us how we are, we're expected to smile and say, "Great".
And as public figures, these people had to earn that money on and off the set: when a photographer approached, they were expected to smile.
A country where we, the minorities, are expected to smile at the racism thrown at us in the media, on the bus, or at family dinners by well-meaning white people.
While it's easy to simply call Agg a "bully" or "mean" speaking with her myself and reading her book, it dawns on me that maybe all the negative press she gets for her personality has more to do with having to stand on her own as a woman in a profession where men get to be brash and women are expected to smile.
