A question about gender issues.?

Question

It has been pretty firmly established that, when telling a joke about gender differences, it is much more PC to make males the brunt as opposed to females. This isn't always the case, but it tends to be.

My question is this: Why is it that so many men tell jokes that berate men? I used to go to a church where the pastor (a guy) would almost every week make some joke at the expense of males. They usually weren't "mean" jokes, but they were still pretty unflattering. Also, if you go to your local bookstore and browse through the humor section, you are likely to find some books that make jokes out of the way men do things that are written by men.

I am not exactly offended by this, but it does kind of make me wonder because you don't very often see women joking like this about women. I don't, anyway. So what is everyone's thoughts on this?
N.B. Not to play "Boss," but could we have mature answers only, please? Thanks.

Answer 1

maybe because men are able to laugh at themselves more, where women tend to have self esteem issues? i'm not really sure...but with all the dumb blonde female jokes going around, i think the male to female ratio in jokes is about even.

Answer 2

There are other ways women are degraded on an almost daily basis, so I don't see the harm in a few jokes at a man's expense every once in a while as long as they are not extremely offensive. Maybe it's the circles you run with. I sure don't hear a lot of those out here in the south.

As for men making the jokes, I don't know why that would be but stranger things have happened.

Answer 3

It's probably because women are offended alot more easily than men are. I'm not saying that some men aren't sensitive, but most don't take it too seriously like women do. My pastors wife was talking one sunday morning and she was making jokes about how all women have the 'complaining gene' and how we all complain ALOT (which is true lol) and some of the women in church got angry about it. I just laughed, and so did most of the women. But when the pastor made jokes about the guys none of them got mad. So I think that its just the nature of women to take some things WAY too seriously.

Answer 4

I guess it has a lot to do with the common believe that the men are less emotional ( and sensitive) than women. So a man can throw a joke about the other man and both of them will laugh. While with ladies, you tend to think about their tender nature ( even if a specific lady is not so) their body, their face.. their voice.. etc
And I guess the women understand that too.. so they will make joke about a man.. but not towards each other.
See, the way I see it : Men are all about laughs, relaxing , no responsibilities if possible and kick back. Women are about beauty, feelings etc. This is why some say the man always think of him self as a bachelor ( even when he is father and married) and the woman think of herself as a mother ( even if not admitting it at times)

Answer 5

I have noticed that it is usually more "acceptable" to make jokes at the expense of a more "powerful" group. Such as, more acceptable to make fun of men than women, more acceptable to make fun of white people than black people.

However, it could also be because there has been so much attention given to bigotry against women (and rightly so) that there is just more sensitivity about that.

Personally, I am offended by many comments I hear women make about men at their expense (all men are this, all men are that) because I consider derogatory stereotypes of men just as sexist as derogatory stereotypes about women. With jokes, well, we all should have some humor about ourselves, although we should also consider the feelings of others.

Answer 6

People tend to use humor as a way to communicate an idea in a way that provokes laughter rather than anger. When the pastor tells a joke about a male, all of the males laugh, and they remember the joke, but they get the point of it later.

When we can look at a less than flattering part of ourselves and laugh about it, it is easier than dealing with it negatively.

As an example, I heard a great "girl" joke, and I've actually had a great time telling it to others. Why? Because it takes something we girls tend to be commonly concerned about (body image) but puts it in a way that is both non-threatening to us, but also funny.

A woman is looking in the mirror, and comments to her other half about her small breasts. Rather than telling her for the 2 millionth time that her breasts aren't too small, he says to her, "Well, if you want them to grow, just rub a piece of toilet paper between your breasts every day, and they'll get bigger." She says to him, "How do you know that?" His answer, "Well, just look at what its done for your butt."

Humor just lets us put our very real concerns at rest for a while.

Answer 7

Interesting question. A few thoughts:

(1) I think the issue is often in the historical setting of the joke. For example, if you make a joke about cooking, the setting involves traditional family roles. If the joke is about a man not being able to cook, the unspoken undercurrent is that of course he can't--that's women's work and he has "more important" things to do. If you tell the exact same joke about a woman, the undercurrent is that she is not living up to her role as keeper of the house and is inadequate.

Along the same lines, if I hear jokes about women being unintelligent, it makes me think of my grandmother who was not allowed to get her master's degree in math, despite having been at the top of the class in all the necessary courses, simply because "math is a male discipline." There is an enormous fear among women that those times will return and that the jokes are only half in jest.

A number of men I have heard making jokes at women's expense were not really joking.

(2)Traditionally, the human standard was male. Male terms were used for all discussions of humans (ex. "mankind" instead of "humankind," using he/him/his to refer to a subject of either sex). So, maybe our brains see jokes against men as jokes against people (even when they are pointed specifically at men), and jokes against women as being specifically against women (even if they could be equally told about men).

(3)Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, this could have to do with how men and women enjoy humor differently. Men enjoy more sophomoric, slapstick humor, while women enjoy more narrative humor that requires analysis (see article referenced below). It seems logical to me that: Men can make fun of men and women can make fun of women without too much offense; men making fun of women and women making fun of men can cause offense. Men are more likely to use sophomoric and slapstick humor, which is the basis of the vast majority of jokes, while women simply do not find this type of humor to be funny as often and so don't tell that type of joke nearly as often. Since most men are nice and don't tell jokes against people who don't appreciate them, they make men the brunt of their jokes. So, men tell jokes against men, women don't tell as many jokes (against anyone, especially since women will be an unreceptive audience).

Answer 8

Basically it is because white, mature men who have jobs and contribute to our society do not make an issue when someone pokes fun of them or demeans them. That makes it safe to target them in this overly sensitive pc environment. We have broad shoulder and can take the abuse without letting it harm our self image.

Answer 9

probably b/c when jokes are made about women, someone gets up in arms about it and the author/joke teller is called a chauvinist. if men got more upset and raised hell about male jokes, you would probably see less of those also.

Answer 10

Chivalry?