According to a stranger who approached me in a restaurant, I have a “mad face.” 

Let me set the scene: After a strenuous day of traversing Los Angeles with my mom — making one too many Starbucks runs, attending a school dance performance and wading through heavy traffic — our exhaustion was inevitable, and (please excuse the following hyperbole) the hunger that followed was ravaging.

Eventually, we found our way to a steakhouse in Santa Monica — with a notoriously long wait time for a table — to satisfy our longing palates. After consulting with the hostess, my mom and I positioned ourselves against the decently comfortable wall, opened up our phones (mine displaying an article on the current state of the Ukraine crisis, hers the latest on Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez), and thus began our hourlong wait.

After I’d exhausted the New York Times app and essentially scrolled to the end of  Instagram and my mom had thoroughly analyzed the current lives of the “Friends” cast, I felt boredom’s malignant grasp tightening and its spindly fingers clawing at me.

At a loss for digital entertainment, I simply zoned out. My daydreaming eventually shapeshifted into new mental game, where I viewed the restaurant as if it were a play, all the diners merely players. Waiters exited stage right. The hostess performed the same monologue over and over. Chefs danced through the kitchen, or perhaps performed an elaborate battle scene with an arsenal of pots and pans.

Enter, stage left: the unexpected antagonist of our story.

Amidst my Shakespearean pastime, I heard the restaurant door squeak open, feeling the subsequent burst of frigid — well, whatever that means in L.A. — air flow into the restaurant. A woman walked in through the door with her party of five, beginning to make her way up to the hostess. I had gathered she was observant by the way she scanned each person in line, her eyes lingering just long enough to make you stand up a bit straighter.

As I was about to reach back into my bag, fingers fumbling clumsily to find the phone that failed me minutes before, I felt a presence a bit too close for comfort. I looked up, only to be met by the hardening gaze of the woman. She scanned me up and down — about as quickly as is possible over the course of two seconds — and locked eyes with me. She had somehow already determined who I was in her play, what kind of character I portrayed. To her, my identity was sealed, immovable.

Then, she pursed her lips together, brows furrowed, and scowled “you have a mad face.”

In that moment — which felt uncomfortably lengthy for a matter of mere seconds — my mind jumped to a single scrappy, anxious conclusion: Do everything in your power to please this woman. I practically spat apologies at her. My face flushed scarlet. I moved further back into the wall, providing her with as much space as she could possibly need as she continued her pilgrimage to the front of the line.

And, after all that, I smiled.

I smiled so largely, my grin could’ve put pageant queens and orthodontist advertisements to shame. Cheeks burning from my prolonged dental strain, I watched the woman reembark on her progression to the hostess. Just like that, it was over.

And, scene.

Though my description above is blatantly theatrical, the reality of this scenario is far from histrionic. By definition, internalized misogyny is the psychologically-embedded, systemically-perpetuated set of anti-women values rooted deep within many women’s psyches. Worst of all, so many women are unaware these values are even present, prompting me to argue internalized misogyny is the patriarchy’s best-kept secret. 

According to a 2009 study conducted on internalized misogyny, researchers found that “internalized misogyny exacerbates the relationship between sexist events and psychological distress” among many women. Based off of centuries of generational sexism, it comes as no surprise that women have such values burned into their systems of belief.

As for how I handled the woman’s comment? One Yale researcher confirmed my reaction was far from unusual. According to the study, “women do what we call ’emotion work,’” which is, simply put, being an amiable, enjoyable presence. We are trained to be givers. To apologize for others’ wrongdoings. To be gentle, consumable, pleasing. 

And, of course, to smile more. 

But, where is the joy in only living to please others solely because of gender identity, when true joy, true exaltation lie in being authentically and unapologetically multifaceted — mad face and all?

So, ladies, stay angry. Plaster on those “mad faces,” whatever they may be, and continue to stand your ground. Continue to be unapologetically you. Because, after all, there’s nothing like a mad woman.