Noting the recent flamewar about jokes, I'd just like to ask people if
this is their experience too:
I find it very hard to convince people that discriminatory jokes are very
problematic.
For example, I have a friend who is generally sympathetic to women's
problems. He is in particular aware, as an avid walker and cyclist, that
women often don't feel safe at night, and feels very angry that women
often can't think "OK, it's 3 in the morning, I want to go on a long walk
by myself" as he does. He supports group action such as Reclaim the Night
then. But he reacted very very negatively when two women at the
residential college he lived at last year took official action against
people telling jokes about them: one of them took action because of jokes
directed personally against her on a gender and race basis, the other took
action about the incredibly pervasive gender discrimination that went on
in various forms.
All of these forms took joking forms - or forms that wre defended as
jokes. 'Dirt sheets' were put under people's doors at night, with
pornopgraphic drawings, naming the 'easy girls' of college. College songs
had very offensive lyrics. New girls were invited to drinks with the
college Boy's Club - and the invitation included pornographic drawings.
This is already sounding horrific to a lot of you, I know. But these
things were defended as being jokes - and very vehemently. Many of the
people involved expressed a great deal of horror when people were actually
offended/intimidated.
However, my friend understood (by analogy with being badly bullied at
school) how the women felt.
But he *still* hated them taking official action. He still bought the
'it's only a joke' defense, and thought that if the women couldn't
convince the men (and having 'I find that offensive' discussions with six
drunken men is ... difficult) to stop, then there was nothing else to be
done.
The situation is complicated by jokes of a less in-your-face nature. A
candidate (from a campus left faction) ran for a student position, as a
joke, as a 'Tory student', and one of his slogans was 'The Student's
Union? Pish-tosh! When I am elected, it will be renamed the University
Gentleman's Club.'
There was a bit of a divide between activist feminists on campus
then. Some were deeply deeply offended and began tearing down posters and
attempting to short-circuit his political connections. Others fell on the
'it's a joke, and not even about women, it's about the ridiculousness of
blueblood conservatism' side. I felt that way too (note I'm not in the
active feminist groups on campus).
So I think the jokes thing is a real sticking point. On one hand, people
understandable feel very circumscribed when they can't share things they
think are funny. It's how people bond.
On the other hand, such jokes can be used to hurt people, or to exclude
them (such as how Friday night drinks at a local pub telling jokes about
women may be used to cut work deals, thus leaving out the women who aren't
welcome there).
OK, here's how I feel about jokes:
The drunken angry college songs frighten me. I honestly felt after being
in a room with men screaming 'Yes means yes and no means yes' (again, I
realise that's really bad, but these things were officially sanctioned by
inaction - college administration never said a word) that, if left in a
room with four of them I'd be gang-raped. I felt physically threatened.
On the other hand, I can laugh at patently absurd jokes such as the Tory
one.
The jokes in the middle are difficult. I, like a lot of women here, can
find them very hard.
The reason why is its hard to hear underneath the joke how it's meant. It
can be 1) "I'm laughing because it has naughty words hehe", 2) "I'm
laughing at anyone who'd say that about women and actually believe it", 3)
"I'm laughing cos everyone else is", and 4) "I'm laughing because I do
believe that about women". It can be hard to hear what kind of laugh it is
in the responses.
The laughter is usually a mixture between one, three and four though. It's
usually mainly one and three, with a few fours. The twos tend to laugh
amongst themselves, since they're actually laughing at one, three and
four. This is the anti-women-jokes-told-by-female-comedians thing.
I, to be honest, can't hear the difference between one, three and four.
And even if I could, I've seen people start at one, or usually three, and
morph to four pretty quickly. That's what happens to men entering some of
Sydney Uni's colleges. That's the power of jokes - they bond people.
But it's very hard to convince people that sexist jokes frighten me. And
even hard when sometimes they don't, because the joke teller and audience
is in group two.
Mary.
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