Feminism Thread Reactivate!

[Pero the first of His name]

If someone in your company was once beat up very badly, do you avoid telling any joke in which a character is beaten?

I am curious about the rationalisation of social constructs which create difference here. And consistancy.

[TerraPrime]

It is the assumption from the position of privilege, i.e., since they had not intended to cause distress to the targets of the jokes, then they should be absolved of responsibility for when/if their jokes do upset people. It's very difficult to get through to them that if they tell sexist, homophobic, racist jokes, that they become less and less distinguishable from a sexist, a homophobe, and a racist. They tend to feel really insulted that someone might consider them to be a sexist "just for telling a joke." At the same time, they'd dismiss the emotional distress that they might be causing others to experience through their choice of jokes.

That said, I do think it's more profitable to critique the joke, and not the person. In other words, point out how the joke is sexist, or racist, or anti-gay, and not why you think that person is a sexist, or a racist, or is anti-gay.

[Sci-2]

If someone in your company was once beat up very badly, do you avoid telling any joke in which a character is beaten?

I am curious about the rationalisation of social constructs which create difference here. And consistancy.

I'd probably not try to trigger their bad memories. I certainly wouldn't make a joke directed toward them.

Similarly, I would [not] make a joke about anyone being molested as a child since you can never know 100% of what anyone else has experienced in their past.

[Pero the first of His name]

Well, i think laughing to sexist jokes makes me s sexist just as much as playing some video game makes me a mass murderer.

But i acknowledge the occasional worry about the usage and consequencesof jokes in groups. Groups tend to be stupid

[TerraPrime]

If someone in your company was once beat up very badly, do you avoid telling any joke in which a character is beaten?

Yes? This needs to be asked? Really? Do you also tell dead baby jokes to women who had suffered miscarriages? Really?

[Sci-2]

Well, i think laughing to sexist jokes makes me s sexist just as much as playing some video game makes me a mass murderer.

Those two things are not equivalent.

[Pero the first of His name]

I'd probably not try to trigger their bad memories. I certainly wouldn't make a joke directed toward them.

Similarly, I would [not] make a joke about anyone being molested as a child since you can never know 100% of what anyone else has experienced in their past.

Eh, so many Catholic jokes down the drain...

What if you were in the company of many married couples and one single person who you suspect is very sad about being single at the moment. Would you risk telling a joke derogatory to single people?

It does seem one would have to be extremely cautious about many things if joking.

I guess i need to also make sure my jokes are just about majorities or the dominant, priviledged groups.

[Aeternum]

The sad thing though is how it brings women down. I always thought it was just me, but I actually know a lot of people who still carry ugly memories and can still be picked apart so easily by that hurt from long ago. Even after all this time we still equate beauty with our value. By calling us ugly, or weird looking people are trying to dismiss what is said. I find this incredibly frustrating to see that even women do this to each other.

It's especially women who do this to each other.

[litechick]

Well, i think laughing to sexist jokes makes me s sexist just as much as playing some video game makes me a mass murderer.

So we come full circle back to the blog post: If your comedy instincts include whipping out a comment about granola or leghair upon hearing the word "feminism," feminists' sense of humor isn't really the problem, k?

[TerraPrime]

Eh, so many Catholic jokes down the drain...

No. If you are okay with insulting that group, then go ahead, and tell that joke. I have no problems insulting Catholics, or other Christians. Althogh I find jokes to be rather indirect and I often just go directly to calling them out on their bullshit.

What if you were in the company of many married couples and one single person who you suspect is very sad about being single at the moment. Would you risk telling a joke derogatory to single people?

Yes, if one wishes to come across as an empathic person, one does have to take into consideration the feelings of those around you.

It does seem one would have to be extremely cautious about many things if joking.

I know! Life is hard!

[Pero the first of His name]

Yes? This needs to be asked? Really? Do you also tell dead baby jokes to women who had suffered miscarriages? Really?

Well, if i had a friend who had a miscarriage and i think a dead baby joke would upset her i think i would resist telling the joke in a smaller group.

I must say it depends on the person.

Not everyone gets offended, thinks they should be offended or gets upset by a memory upon hearing a joke making fun of a certain trait or group they are also a part of.

The delivery is also important.

So, if i am ever to fulfill my fantasy of doing a standup act, what is the list of things i should not talk about?

[Sci-2]

So, if i am ever to fulfill my fantasy of doing a standup act, what is the list of things i should not talk about?

I'd said there's a difference between standup and directly targeting someone with a joke.

In general I'd say rape jokes are bad because we live in cultures overly accepting of rape and dismissal of rape victims.

Personally I'd like to see more jokes targeting the immorality inherent to various religions, but that's a subject for another thread.

[Pero the first of His name]

Personally I'd like to see more jokes targeting the immorality inherent to various religions, but that's a subject for another thread.

I will take it!

I will take The Joke to Mecca!

Though, i do not know the way to make the OP..

Also, sorry for doing my part in this joke-digression.

[imbenurnot]

Well, i think laughing to sexist jokes makes me s sexist just as much as playing some video game makes me a mass murderer.

...

That's nice, but you didn't have to feel her heartbeat after we sat back down. It is called basic sympathy.

[karaddin]

Well, i think laughing to sexist jokes makes me s sexist just as much as playing some video game makes me a mass murderer.

Well the criteria test for for being a sexist person is engaging in sexist behaviour, telling sexist jokes is certainly a subset of sexist behaviour. The criteria test for being a mass murderer is actually killing people, not killing people in a video game so no this is a ridiculous false equivalence.

Moving on I read what I thought was quite an interesting piece this morning on sexism in left wing activist groups, Russel Brand and his sexism and the need for intersectionality. It's quite long but absolutely worth a read. It does have some overlap with the current conversation as discussing Russel Brand brings in the way he uses sexism in his jokes and particularly his use of rape jokes. I've stated my feelings before but I'm a killjoy with no sense of humour when it comes to jokes about minority groups. There is absolutely no way someone can make a joke about trans people and have me find it funny, because regardless of that persons intentions that joke serves to reinforce our status as a minority group and the joke is intended for other peoples amusement at our expense. Why the fuck should I just laugh off my identity being a source of amusement for someone else? The same goes for sexist jokes, racist jokes etc.

The way in which I have been able to use humour with my friends and family around my transition is in laughing at unusual situations and circumstances that we have found ourselves in as a result of my transition - it's perfectly possible to have a sense of humour about life without laughing at people like that. I'm unlikely to give a random person on the internet the same benefit of the doubt that I've extended to my family on this point though.

[Datepalm]

That's the problem with your posts. I find you so weird and utterly beyond my frame of reference - I sometimes still can't believe I'm talking to an actual communist in this day and age - that I never actually know whether you are serious or not.

Like in this case I am pretty sure the commie tattoo on your forehead is a joke, but some part of me actually thinks you may be serious.

Bottomline, I find it so utterly impossible to connect with your frame of reference that I usually just stay out of your way.

Just had to mention it, given that I am now stuck with the nagging doubt about whether I am reading the posts of a man with a hammer and sickle tattooed on his forehead.

I'm perplexed, I am willing to admit.

I know someone with a hammer and sickle tattoo. Admittedly, not on his forehead. Which is pretty weaksauce, now come to think of it.

Re jokes - I have to admit i'm ambivalent here. I tend to let things slide if they're funny, even if I know that strictly speaking they're offensive. My base assumption is that i'm a decent person and therefore will not find anything truly offensive funny in the first place, but of course that's wildly flawed. At the same time i'm wary - as a political practice - of a certain self important seriousness when it comes to language in leftwing circles, in a simple practical and even tactical sense, so.

That said, there's a vast distinction to be drawn between public humor aimed at a mass audience - a standup comedian or a tv show or whatever, and what comes out of your personal mouth in your personal life around personal people. If you make a joke that misfires because of the people in the room - a dead baby joke to someone who had a miscarriage, etc*, you should indeed feel fucking awful for it, and all the more so if you're tossing around humor based on sex/race/etc which you know are triggering subjects. Theres fairly ugly humor I feel comfortable tossing around between close friends who's positions and sensitivities i'm 100% familiar with, that I would never break out in a group I don't know. That's my responsibility, and if i've misjudged it it's my fuckup and my onus to apologize. Which I have done.( Although it was for a settler joke, which i'm ambivalent about.)

*My biggest recent fuckup was that my habitual response to "what's up" is something that translates roughtly as "you know, still alive." It's just what I always say. A while back a former boss called me to check up on something, and I answered with "still alive," about 8 milliseconds before I remembered that her daughter had committed suicide a few months earlier. *wince*

[Pero the first of His name]

Can someone further explain the, by now several times mentioned, difference between joking in a big group/publically/proffessionally as in a TV show or standup act and joking in a smaller group with friends, family, colleagues?

What is the thought process in the offendee's head?

Why is the offendee offended less when he hears the same joke in a TV show?

Is the dominance presentation aspect always present, always interpreted as present, so important?

I think examining offensiveness and humour is fascinating.

We need to get more into the mechanics of it to discuss it objectively.

As for my equivalency, it is false and hastily done, yes.

What i really ment to say is playing a video game does not affect me becoming a mass murderer.

That equivalency could still be deemed false, based on your thoughts.

Edit:

Anyways, i might make a Unified thread of offensiveness once i gather more knowledge and i do it good enough to get permission.

I guess it should result in much less derailing of other respective threads, as well as eliminating much of my presence in them.

Edit2:

Just seen Kat's post after doing Edit1.

I very much agree.

[Kat]

[Mod] Pero- Can you start another topic on jokes/humor in general if you wish to further discuss this? This tangent is really getting off-topic and it's the 2nd or 3rd time you've brought this up in a feminism thread.

[Jace, Extat]

Hello, I'm continuing my exodus from the entertainment section, and thought I'd see what all the bra-burning (that is a joke) feminism is about. ;) I'll expand on this comment later.

She actually tried to argue that saying, "With all due respect" made it respectful. :shocked:

What, is her dad Ricky fucking Bobby? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!

I would think every teacher is subjected to that shit. (Certainly every teacher I know is.)

I remember seeing stuff like that when I was in school. Oddly enough I saw it more in highschool than in college, when a lot of girls are just realizing that their bodies give them some perceived control over men. My favorite teacher (who was also my soccer coach) was a really short guy, and he taught the 'misfit' French class. It seemed like only the weirdos and the girls on the soccer team would end up in his class, and I remember that there was a very scary instance when one of the girls in the class accused him of trying to make her perform sexual acts for him.

It was absolute bullshit, as I was in that class, and she was constantly making inappropriate remarks because he was failing her (It was previously unheard of for someone to fail that class) due to her lack of doing anything. Luckily everyone in the class knew what was happening and came to his defense, but despite this girl almost ruining a man's career/life, she got removed from the class and no further action was taken.

That was a long time ago, but I'm not surprised that shit like this happens to teachers. Kids get away with fucking murder.

I think that physical size is a not insignificant component of this differential in how men and women are treated in the classroom and elsewhere.

Not sure what this adds to the discussion, other than there might be common strategies among small men and women in maintaining a respectful atmosphere.

The reason I bring it up is I saw a marked difference between the way my mother was treated at a physically imposing 5'11" and the way smaller women are treated.

And it seems like when heightism is brought up, it's mostly to compare the way men are treated based on height, but I think if applied across genders, it might prove a valid intersection with sexism.

This is a thing. I'm very short, and there is absolutely a difference in how I'm treated compared to other women. It's often hard to get taken seriously by guys I've worked with, and I'm treated as something like a little sister. It can also be very frustrating relationship-wise, as my former fiancée was once accused of being a pedophile by one of his drunken coworkers.

Depends on the context and how well you know each other.

Humour frequently transgresses boundaries. It's often the point.

Like anything it depends on your audience.

:huh:

I think this is very important. Anything is ok in the right context with the right audience. It more or less comes down to knowing if someone will be offended. Regarding the rape-joke situation, I honestly don't think I know any rape jokes, but before you say something like that you need to know who you're telling it to. I know a few dead baby jokes, but since I have common sense, I don't whip that shit out unless I know who I'm telling it to and I know they won't be offended. It's a simple concept.

So I was talking to this girl I know while out at dinner a few days ago, she's married to an old friend of mine, and she mentioned that she hates skirts. As far as I know, she's not really a feminist, but she just mentioned that she's really not fond of them because women worked so hard for the right to wear pants. I want to make it clear that she was not going on some crazy bra-burning feminist rant (because those aren't real), she was simply explaining her distaste for them. I, as someone who loves skirts, disagreed. We had a very civilized conversation, and it left me thinking.

I've never been a big feminist, I just don't like dealing with shit like that, and I personally never used to wear skirts before 2005 when I went on a 'Skirt Rebellion' in support of a friend and only wore skirts for almost a year and a half straight. I like to feel cute, so I wear a skirt. Does this set back women? I'm honestly curious to hear about this from some people with more feminist ideals.

By the way, this conversation I had inspired the title I adopted.

[Northern Nomad]

I've never been a big feminist, I just don't like dealing with shit like that, and I personally never used to wear skirts before 2005 when I went on a 'Skirt Rebellion' in support of a friend and only wore skirts for almost a year and a half straight. I like to feel cute, so I wear a skirt. Does this set back women? I'm honestly curious to hear about this from some people with more feminist ideals.

By the way, this conversation I had inspired the title I adopted.

I don't think so, though i am of the male gender and have never worn a skirt, i don't see how there is anything bad in wearing a skirt. Isn't feminism about rights, so therefore is wearing a skirt because you want to wear it, something that goes in accordance with feminism.