Some posts backs, I mentioned that a leader of the loony "birther" movement was named Orly Taitz. I also noted that I could have a lot of fun with that name if I did not have feminist readers.
Predictably, a feminist reader wrote in and gave me the predictable scold. She could guess what kind of verbal fun I had in mind.
A thought suddenly occurs to me. Suppose that the birther leadership included a guy named Dick Flater or Peter Zucker or John Thomas Teaney? You know damned well what the anti-birthers would do with a name like that -- and I'd be making off-color jokes with the rest of 'em.
So why is that situation different?
C'mon. Hit me with the special pleading. Strained rationalization is my favorite form of humor.
20 comments:
We are currently in a hypersensitive state regarding women's issues, and rightly so. It's about time a lot of things that generally go unnoticed under the radar got some justified attention and scrutiny. That being said, it's not just about whether something should, or should not, be considered appropriate, it's that in the current environment, almost nothing is.
Think of it this way, if you're careful, smoking a cigarette in your car with the windows down while visiting the Angeles National Forest might not be recommended, but, is probably okay. Unless it's fire season. Then it's potentially stupid.
When it comes to women's issues nowadays, it's always fire season. Best to err on the side of caution.
There are two things I can think of. One: the communication styles of men and women are different. My observation of men joking with each other is verbal rough-housing. Trading insults and barbs seems to be accepted and expected. However, most women do not communicate that way and tend to find that kind of banter distinctly unfunny.
Second: It does have to do with who has power in this society. We've had two women's movements, one at the beginning of the 20th century and one in the late 20th century. Women still lag behind men in pay and stature in this society. There is a real sense - and I believe that sense is accurate - that when the majority of men make fun of women it is not a give and take situation of equals but an act of aggression to keep women in their place.
I'm personally more comfortable when an idea or an action is criticized, even in humor, rather than an attack on people whether it be a name, the way one dresses, one's physical anatomy, etc.
"When it comes to women's issues nowadays, it's always fire season. Best to err on the side of caution."
Erring "on the side of caution" is exactly what these hypersensitive females want us to do... It keeps us conveniently quiet.
If things are sooo bad here, they ought to go live in Saudi Arabia for a few years to get some prespective.
It's not the issues that are hypersensitive, it's the women.
when women are safe inside and outside of their homes, 50% of the power structure, and respected members of society, making off-color jokes may have a different resonance than it does now, especially to us feminists.
"So why is that situation different?"
It's not. Both are cruel.
Seems to me the preferred punching bags of the last couple of years, if not the last couple of generations, has been "old, white men" or "dead, white guys". It seems we're the source of all the evil in the world. If we're so bad, and we clearly control everything in Amerika, maybe on the planet, why do most of the people in the world want to come live with us in this filthy hell-hole? Why aren't you all fleeing from us? Setting up paradise-on-Earth far, far away from us testosterone-tainted scum?
Ah, lida. I knew someone would try that tactic.
So, think back to that scene in "Life of Brian" when Pontius Pilate tells his guardsmen "Do you find anything wisible about the name of my good fwiend Biggus Dickus...?" Are you honestly telling me that you would have been the guardsman who didn't smile?
Joseph,
Who you calling Felix the Cat?
Haha, dare we not invoke the One-eyed trouser snake...
As a feminist, I'm all for equal respect and equal time. Sans the Nanny-statist, PC humor police, of course;(
Hey Bob at 1:10pm _
"If things are sooo bad here, they ought to go live in Saudi Arabia for a few years to get some prespective."
Mind telling me where the men's version of Saudi Arabia is? We're not talking about two-bit dictators that oppress an entire people. We're talking about societies that force men to hide behind obscure clothing, beat them if they appear in public without being escorted by one of their keepers. And that's not even the half of it.
Your analogy is not justified and, if it's your idea of humor, you need to have the tables turned on you.
Barbara
This is the real Bob. Don't get me confused withe the other Bob then come over to my house and burn it down.
I remember the primaries.
Joseph, sometimes your sexism is astounding. It is as you are this guy who could get it, if you wanted to or tried, but you don’t, because you don’t want to. I’ve mentioned it to you before and you did nothing but dismiss my concern. The same goes with this question. You know you don’t care what any woman, much less a feminist says, because only you, the all-entitled man, will decide if her answer suits your satisfaction. And of course no answer will suit because you don’t want it to.
I mean seriously, are you kidding me? The systematic power differential is not there. This is not even 101 stuff, this is remedial let’s study for the test that will help us prepare for the test that we need to take before we can take the test for the test for the pre-test that we need to bring us up to the speed for the test.
Honestly. You are not this thick, why are you insisting on acting as if you are.
Like hell I'm going to take any lectures from someone who prints the crap you do, Kitty. On your site, you've said that all men are rapists and all heterosexual sex is rape.
Which I found very amusing, since women have a habit of leaving men who do not "rape" them often enough. And I've heard women tell each other how much they enjoyed being "raped" really, really hard and fast.
Go away and de-list me from your blog, nutbag.
Joseph, of course I would have smiled. In fact I would have laughed to myself. Doesn't make it right though. I'm human just like anyone else and have my own failings. I just don't laugh about stuff to peoples faces that's all.
I think it depends on the intent of the person making the comment/joke about any "group" of people. If the person is intending humor by it, and pokes fun at other "groups," then I don't see anything wrong with it. But, if they're intent is to denigrate the "group," then that's where I would have a problem with it.
Humor provides a wonderful opportunity to look at the way a society treats people. I, for one, would have loved to read what humorous comments you would have written. And I consider myself a feminist.
Because, Joseph, like it or not, talented women are still held back solely by gender. Men use that kind of rhetoric as a tool against women. Just look at the difference women with careers in Hollywood experience - whether it is female directors, actresses or DPs. They simply are not given a chance based on gender. Anita Hill, returning from her testimony in DC, was surrounded in Dallas by people chanting, "bitch, bitch, bitch" as she walked to her plane. Their attack was on her gender.
This is a place where you miss the mark. The fact is that not all men make it - even ones who are immensely talented, disciplined and smart. And there are a lot of men less talented who do make it. But the old boy's network doesnt' rule men out based on gender but on sensibility - look at the toll it took on Orson Welles. Now, imagine a female director still having any kind of a career while weighing 300 pounds. It would never happen. Imagine Gallo wine hiring a 350 pound woman to sell their wine. Nope.
Regardless of how talented women are, they never get the kind of breaks that they men do. And the rhetoric we don't want to listen to that reduces us to whores and bimbos is the first line assault against us. Calling men "dicks" has certainly never held a guy back - in fact, it's frequently seen as an asset.
There is so much you are right about. This is a place where you miss the mark as completely as the birthers do.
By the way, calling men names isn't acceptable either, but the impact is different. The fact of the matter is that men still control the airwaves and are the dominant voices in our cultural discussion. And until that changes, calling women and ethnic minorities names will do damage to them that it does not do to white men (who still own the vast majority of the wealth in our world).
Orly is a deranged racist and deserves every bit of ridicule she gets.
Some people need health care reform to pass so they can afford to get the stick surgically removed from their ass.
Pretty much any kind of humor will be politically incorrect in someone's book.
Ironically, the most hyper-sensitive to slights against their own group are often the most bigoted towards other groups.
The Fabulist Kitty G. is a prime example.
Interesting question, and as usual we have a few neanderthals like Bob spewing if we don't like the things such as the nonstop misogyny inflicted on us 24/7 by the fathead media pundits we should go live in Saudi Arabia, where they let school girls burn to death because the firemen aren't allowed to "touch" them.
Nice work, Bob, on reminding us how much we need Hillary Clinton to drag your sorry asses into the 21st century.
Meanwhile, back to the question at hand.
Joseph, I've always been of the "give them a taste of their own medicine" stripe. Thus you will see me nonstop ridiculing the physical prowess (or lack thereof) of sexist pigs. It's not just kneejerk...my assertion is that it's highly likely that woman-haters are under-endowed and/or impotent. Virile men simply have no reason to hate women.
But as for your inclination to mock both men and women via name, gender, and political outlook, I get it...and here is what changed my mind about that. I used to call Ann Coulter Mann Coulter. If anyone deserves a taste of her own medicine it would be Coulter. But as it was pointed out to me over at TGW, such a term might hurt differently gendered people. It was not a point I immediately absorbed...and I know at least some tran societies joined in the joke and "reached out" to Ann (which I found hilarious)...but it did begin to bother me that I was perpetuating the denigration of a group of people who have enough to deal with without possible allies adding to the locker room noise.
Not because Coulter didn't deserve it, not because trannies have no sense of humor, but because it was bringing Coulter down on the (de)merits of her appearance....which women everywhere face everyday...and because it was *perpetuating* homophobia as the ultimate putdown.
I found, personally, it was no longer worth the joke, for me.
I'm glad you asked this question. The answer will evolve along with society, and it will be interesting how humor will emerge on the other end.
Oh, a tangent to your question.
When Glenn Beck said that "faggot" was "just a naughty word" and made it one you can say on TV (!), I wrote a performance piece about it...and other "double-g" words that might be coming soon to TV.
After my piece, a gay poet friend took me to task, saying there was never any excuse for saying the N-word. He was fine with Beck's saying faggot, but said AAs had been KILLED, therefore the N-word was completely off limits. Maybe he thinks Matthew Shepard was the only lynched gay man? Maybe he doesn't know women are maimed and killed every day for their gender. At any rate, more than one black poet friend of mine told me our carping friend was FOS and the piece was fine.
It wasn't an easy piece to do, but I channeled my inner-Sarah Silverman (don't I wish).
I don't mind if you think I'm also FOS, or insufferably didactic, but for me, this type of "humor" has to be backed up by a cause or larger point. The "Mann Coulter" type snipes, simply because she looks the part and "deserves" it, no longer hold their appeal to me. We've become a society in which, just because she "deserves" it, Sarah Palin can be depicted as a "MILP" (the P instead of the usual bad-enough F stand for punch) with a large hairy arm and giant fist knocking her teeth out. While Cooper Anderson spits all over himself in indignation over the Curious George Obama tee shirt, we saw not even one raised eyebrow over MILP or any of the rampant sexist jokes and depictions.
I'm clean out of metaphors for this one...let's see...suppose you're pulled over by a cop and try a jovial joking approach, but he's having none of it.
Would you continue? (from experience: don't!)
It has to do with the demands of the times...and there will come another time for trash-talking and ribbing.
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