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On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Mary Gardiner wrote:
> I find it very hard to convince people that discriminatory jokes are very
> problematic.
Ahh, this old thing. :(
Bit spooky that you wrote this today, as on a company newsgroup
".talk.humour" just got the following:
***
A man comes home from an exhausting day at work, plops down on the couch
in front of the television and tells his wife, "Get me a beer before it
starts." So the wife gives him a beer. Fifteen minutes later, he says,
"Get me another beer before it starts." He finishes the 2nd beer and a
few minutes later says, "Quick, quick, get me another beer, it's going
to start any minute." The wife finally snaps and says, "Is that all
you're going to do all night, drink beer and sit in front of the TV.
You're nothing but an overweight, drunken couch potato!"
The man sighs and says, "It's started....."
***
Now my impulse is: It's not even funny, it is offensive, it's exactly as
you described being about males bonding against a common "enemy" in the
"can't live with them, can't live without them" vein.
I've responded occasionally to these on other mailing lists, espec when
the "joke" itself has had easy tags into it so that I could respond in
such a way that it was relevant, humourous, and got the point across that
women don't appreciate these things - I like it when you end up turning
the joke back onto the originator and usually get appreciative, supportive
emails from both men and women in response, which is nice. I most
definitely do not send back antimale jokes though.
But it is difficult and time consuming to construct a response that
balances the fact that I'm annoyed with it, with a witty comeback. As I
said, where I've succeeded in doing this its been very positive, and
cleared the list of such crud in favour of something genuinely funny.
I don't want to make an official complaint - apart from the fact that I
think the company's response would be far in excess of the original
"crime", and that I don't want to perpetuate the "women have no sense of
humour" or "can't stick up for themselves" myth - the only real response
the company can have is one of censorship. :(
My take on this is that it is just one symptom of the real disease, and
impossible to treat successfully in isolation. We will not get rid of
sexist jokes until we get rid of sexism.
But at the same time we *must* keep fighting it, whenever we've got the
strength to. If we all make a small amount of effort to counter what we
come across in everyday life we will make the world a better place for
every woman that comes after us.
I don't think that a response of replying with anti men jokes is in the
slightest bit helpful. I do think it would be useful if there was a web
resource for countering the jokes. Maybe some witty comebacks, with an
explanation of why we react the way we do.
I really liked your "the jokes are used for bonding, and we are excluded
from that" - it is so very true, and scarily honest.
By the nature of what we do, our most regular contact, and hence frinds
are male. For me, and I'm sure many of us, our friends are mostly male.
And it was such a relief to find a bunch of people - geeks - with whom I
finally fitted in slightly better with. When this group exclude me with
their dumb "jokes" it hurts so much more than if someone in regular
society had done it - I'd never properly bond with them anyway.
- --
Best wishes.
ae
"What a funny looking thing. Lets not be frightened,
perhaps its full of chocolates"
Jenny on first meeting Chorlton. Chorlton and the Wheelies
Public Key : http://www.sei.ukshells.co.uk/pubkey.asc
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