But I like the rape jokes best of all!

[slemslempike]

I am reading about humour at the moment. This is problematic because every now and then the authors will make jokes to illustrate a point, and they're never funny, and I waste time wondering if it's me or them. But the hilarity of the commentary more than makes up for this. My favourite to date:

"nonsense jokes were preferred by females, especially those with low intelligence".

There was an article that consisted, in its entirety, of a summarised paragraph of the time the author regaled a conference with funny things her au pairs had said. These were funny apparently both at the time, and then later once the girls had learnt English, and the family could throw their mistakes in their faces. There was also an article about Welsh jokes, that concluded that there was no staple stereotype used by the English when joking about the Welsh. I can think of one, and I bet most of you can too. Is it so recent? The article's from 1977.

Deserving of an extra special mention though, is an article called "Female Responses to Chauvinism". What I expected was a study on how women resisted sexist jokes. What I got was an article about how sexually attractive women were mattered for how funny they found jokes. The initial studies were criticised for how they decided the scale of attractiveness (they'd got some lecturers to compare notes on female students), which wasn't objective. There were also some whiners saying that perhaps judging women on their attractiveness wasn't quite on, and shouldn't it be how attractive they felt? So the authors did a new study, combining these! They used vital statistics as an objective measure of attractiveness (they went with the bust/waist ratio), and asked women to rate themselves.

It wasn't just seuxal attractiveness that was measured. "The girls were also assessed for their views on Women's Liberation." Interesting. "Those in sympathy expressed little amusement at cartoons involving rape", the humourless bitches. Furthermore, "they took special delight in the opposite, that is, jokes denigrating men". That was probably the start of when feminism started going Too Far.

Apparently plain girls are usually disapproving of sex because they don't get any and they're trying not to be jealous. They also laugh more at male chauvinist jokes becuase they are imagining themselves in the position of getting all that lovely sexual attention from men. Attractive girls are obviously very approving of sex, the dirty sluts, but they don't laugh so much at the jokes because they already have a surfeit of male attention. To be fair to the authors, they do momentarily wonder if using Freud as a basis for female sexuality is wise, but eventually conclude that:

Nevertheless, we are left with the finding that girls who are 'built; in the sense of having a desirable female shape expressed a relative liking for cartoons concered with intercourse and treating the female as a sex toy. Perhaps girls who are shapely but otherwise unattractive come into their own during sex play, that is, their shapely form will be most appreciated at this time.

Comments

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

I... think my brain just fell out.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Some chauvinist jokes I laugh at, some I get offended by. I honestly can't tell whether some are more offensive than others or some are funnier; I believe it's the latter, but I can't be sure.

Yes, I am a humourless feminist, why do you ask?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Laughing at men's jokes has nothing to do with whether the jokes are funny or not: it would have made a lot more sense to examine how attractive/powerful in relation to the women the males telling the jokes were.* We're talking obsequious deference and reflecting at twice natural size here, aren't we? This is a bit like saying bosses' jokes are hilarious because everybody laughs at them: the sycophants.

*Okay, there are some men who really are really, really funny and are able to 'laugh women into bed' in spite of any obvious disadvantages. They are not in the majority

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I'm trying very hard to see this as a cheering measure of how far we've come since the 70s (getting lecturers to rate female students?) but I keep sidetracking onto 'where were all the lesbians?' and wondering whether they were the only ones wearing sensible enough shoes to run away from these people.

*offers mental floss*

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

There was also an article about Welsh jokes, that concluded that there was no staple stereotype used by the English when joking about the Welsh. I can think of one, and I bet most of you can too.

Yes, indeed, and my (Welsh) grandfather has alluded to hearing it when he was studying in Birmingham in the 1940s, so it's not new.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

Also, would the study have been different had an arse man been choosing the criteria? I think we should be told...

[girlofprey.livejournal.com]

Why were people in the past such fools?

[blindfish.livejournal.com]

Strongly resists need to bang head against sharp edge of desk until the world where these things are present is blotted out.