So, as I'm sure you know, feminists are often accused of being humourless. And let's face it, sometimes we are. Reading feminist literature or discussing feminist issues typically involves feeling somewhat bogged down by the hopelessness of the situation and feeling slightly helpless against the massive tidal wave that is global misogyny (don't believe me - think sex trade, think rape as a war crime, think the stoning of women for adultery while men go free, think honour killings, think wage disparity, think breast implants etc.). But there is a good reason why feminists often seem to lack humour - humour is often used as a catch-22 form of control over women and other groups. It goes like this - someone tells a sexist joke and either a) you don't say anything and the joke, which is derogatory and offensive, is passed off as acceptable rather than prejudiced or b) you say something and get accused of having no sense of humour, being "one of those" kind of women (you know, hysterical, feminist, lesbian, man-hating etc.), and of taking everything too seriously when it's "just a joke." It might be "just a joke" to the teller but humour that is degrading is just another form of sexism and it takes aim at women's sense of self worth and chips away at their power.
So why, do you ask, am I ranting about this? Alas, a family member who is otherwise fairly good about not getting tied up in gender role crap, shared a joke with me that I shall summarize for you here. Basically, it was sort of a fake ad, suggesting that men, if they have a nagging wife who wants them to do yardwork when there is a football game on, should consider surreptitiously shooting their wives with a tranquilizing blow dart to get out of it - she'll never know it was you, and you don't have to deal with her nagging. Such blow darts can also be useful to ensure the sanctity of poker night, golfing or other such activities that nagging, pesky, annoying wives are always getting in the way of.
Of course, I found this joke extremely offensive and tried to explain it. I'm not sure I made much impact. Of course, my relative claimed that he just shared it to "get me going." As if this is less offensive? "I am going to tell you a joke that attacks your value system and demeans you as a person because it is funny to watch you get worked up about it." Seriously not cool. To add salt to the wound, this joke was apparently picked up at his workplace which is largely male and very privileged. Which just goes to show that at the top of the corporate world, swapping such jokes over the water cooler is completely acceptable. I find this extremely disturbing.
I am also very pissed off at the joke. Shoot your wife with a blowdart because she's a nag? WTF? Violent imagery much? Vast devaluing of women as persons much? Don't like what she's saying, tranq her with a blowdart. I also HATE nagging wife jokes. Women are just sort of automatically put in charge of family life, even if they're also workers outside the home. They have to keep track of birthdays, buying the presents and the cards. They have to monitor the routines of the house - what needs fixing, what needs cleaning, what needs replacing when. They keep track of appointments, of meetings, of which friends and family members are visiting, sick, need help etc. They wash the sheets and towels, buy the toilet paper and the dishsoap. True, there are some households were the men fully and completely share in these household activities, but generally, even when men are helping out, the burden of keeping track of family and household falls disproportionately to the women.
And then men have the nerve to call them nags and to complain that their wives are on their backs. The nagging wife is such a demeaning stereotype. It takes a woman, who is voicing her needs and asking for help in meeting them, and reduces her to a whining shrew. It's just a tool for silencing. It calls up such bad imagery, who would want to be labeled a nag? It's a shaming word and again a catch-22. Either you reduce you're demands to avoid being called a nag or you speak your demands and are cast as unreasonable, demanding, and difficult. Either way, you end up not getting the help you need and somehow feeling bad about yourself and angry at your spouse. Not cool.
And of course, my relative didn't mean all of these things when he told me the joke but these were all the things I felt. It was really awkward for me because this is someone that I love very much, whose approval is important to me, and whom I am not all that comfortable criticizing in a serious manner. I was very upset for a while afterwards plus I was worried that I had offended him. That one little joke made me miserable for about four hours that night and it still makes me unhappy now. Even as I write this post, I feel angry about the joke but also worried about what he'll think if he reads it. It's a lot of shit to put a person through just to get a laugh.
And it's not that I don't have a sense of humour, it's that the joke isn't funny. Seriously, it's not funny. It's misogyny at work, whether he realized it or not. I would invite you, gentle readers, not to take part in that sort of humour, nor to stand idly by. Fight the good fight. Sexism comes in both large and small packages but it's all the same old shit.
