If it had been two men in the picture, it would have been unremarkable. A meme waiting to happen, at best.

Instead, when outgoing Australian Of The Year Grace Tame posed for a photo with Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week, it sparked a national debate that has not stopped roaring.

Why? Because she refused to smile.

The woman who has campaigned fearlessly on behalf of sexual abuse victim survivors – herself included – was standing with the man who represents the pinnacle of Parliament House, which over the last two years has proven itself to be a deeply sexist, dangerous space for women. The man who, when responding to Brittany Higgins’ rape accusation, required his wife Jenny’s counsel to access his empathy. “Jenny and I spoke last night”, he said at the time, “and she said to me, ‘You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?’ – Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has.”

So when Grace Tame posed for that photo, you can imagine what was going through her head.

The headlines were swift and plentiful. She was labelled “childish” by The Australian journalist Peter van Onselen; The Project’s Carrie Bickmore rightfully pointed out that it was a particularly foul choice of word to describe a survivor of childhood sexual assault.

The Australian Financial Review’s Pru Goward labelled Grace an “angry young woman”. I’d be angry too, if I were her.

Think pieces urged her to hand back her award, to stop being rude, to – in other words – “just smile, love”.

It’s a variation on a theme which every woman has faced at one point or another. I’ve been told to smile in an exercise class (hello, my legs are on fire, and also have you ever seen a man in the weights room smiling pleasantly throughout sets?). I’ve been told to smile when I was studying (okay?), walking down the street, when I was featured in a documentary and my grandmother wrote me a letter to tell me I hadn’t smiled enough in it.

I don’t need to tell you all the reasons this is wrong. By telling women to smile, we tell them to place the comfort of others above their own emotional experience. We tell them to mask their discomfort, for the benefit of others. We tell them that their feelings matter less than their faces.

And while I don’t for a moment compare the two, I think we need to talk more openly about the ways that telling women to smile, or asking them to be ‘nice’ above being ‘honest’, exists on the same spectrum as the rape culture that Grace Tame so articulately advocates against.

No, telling your daughter she has to hug her grandfather is not the same thing as being a rape apologist. But it’s two extremes of the same line. In both cases, you tell women and girls that their bodily autonomy is less important than the comfort and preferences of others – particularly those in power. That is exactly the narrative that enabled Grace Tame’s abuser to groom and assault her, for years.

And so while Grace Tame not smiling for a photo might seem petty enough, what it represents is the tip of an enormous, dangerous iceberg.

In the workplace, women are underrepresented, underpaid, and undervalued. A KPMG study found that 75% of executive women say they have experienced imposter syndrome at various points during their careers. The gender paygap still sits at over 14%, while there are still eight boards on the ASX300 with zero women at the table. The power at work still sits squarely with men.

Men can ‘tell it like it is’ without fear of being labelled aggressive, rude, or confrontational. But while a man’s directness at work is considered forthright, efficient, or to the point, a woman’s needs to be couched in a smile, buffered by ‘just a thought’ and ‘sorry, can I just ask…’

These are all a part of the same conversation. They’re stars in the same constellation.

Men’s violence against women is a pandemic in Australia, with an average of one woman per week being killed by her current or former partner. The vast majority of us can probably pinpoint a time when we have put ourselves in danger for fear of being impolite. I have held my keys in my hand, quickening my pace, but not breaking into a run, in case I was being ‘crazy’. I have carried on a conversation with a stranger in an empty train carriage, when every hair on my body stood on end, my instincts telling me to get out. But I didn’t want to be rude. What if he was just trying to have a chat?

I hate to pull a Scott Morrison, but I too have daughters. And what Grace Tame has reminded me, with that glorious side-eye glance to her right, is the importance of teaching them to be true to themselves. To listen to their instincts, to honour their own feelings, to have conviction in their actions. I will raise them to be kind, and thoughtful, and polite, of course. But not at their own expense.

That steely glare from Grace Tame was a brazen reminder to us all. If she can front that press pack without caving to the pressure, the least we can do is stop opening every email with the word “Sorry…”

Grace Tame isn’t smiling. And she’s not sorry, either. Now if only men could stop being so emotional about it. It’s nothing personal.