Is Sir Michael Parkinson within his rights?

[flaviaritt]

Says men are funnier than women. He says, ‘It's a very contentious statement, but they're much better'.

My view is that, by the age of 85, if you think men are funnier than women, it’s just your opinion based on your experience and nobody should be getting riled up about it.

Reasonable?

Unconscious bias plays a huge part in how we see and value the role of men and women in society and will have hugely influenced his opinions.

I agree with @kingofbears. If this is his considered opinion, rather than a thoughtless one, it strikes me as even more misguided. It is a blinkered statement that reflects badly on him, not women.

Men are funnier than women. No doubt about it in my eyes

Unconscious bias plays a huge part in how we see and value the role of men and women in society and will have hugely influenced his opinions.

Maybe. I don’t know what influenced his opinions, except his experiences.

@flaviaritt

You can't see how a person's thought processes or opinions are affected by their intelligence?

Of course they are. But I expect whether they find men or women funnier (if either) is affected by more than intelligence. So I don’t think it is a matter of intelligence.

I should think it's affected a lot by how threatened they feel by men/women.

I really don’t see why not.

@flaviaritt because it’s an inflammatory statement that will offend lots of women (as seen on this thread!!)

As I said, I agree with him but I wouldn’t make myself publicly unpopular saying it - it’s not worth it! It’s just a personal opinion.

If this is his considered opinion, rather than a thoughtless one, it strikes me as even more misguided.

Whereas I think it is being his considered opinion is a hundred times better than not. Because if he just said it for no honest reason, that would definitely be prejudice.

I can’t believe that you genuinely don’t see any issue with an old white man who enjoys some influence voicing an opinion that a whole group of people are less likely to have a specific good quality than another, historically more privileged, group of people. Saying it’s just his opinion doesn’t change the fact that he is validating a lot of prejudice.

CanICelebrate

And people aren’t allowed to have opinions that offend others? Anyway, I am a woman and I am not offended. He tends to enjoy male humour more. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest, it’s his right to think exactly what he likes.

See, this is why you need to read a book about unconscious bias. This is why everyone needs to read about it! So that we can move towards consciously recognising it, and become a more enlightened society, for heaven’s sake.

Well if MP is entitled to his opinion then so am, which is that he is talking utter bollocks. The last comedian I saw live was Sarah Millican and she was awesome, I laughed so much, she was hysterical - on the other hand I would rather chew off my own foot than endure watching man child Frankie Boyle who thinks being an offensive dickhead is the same thing as being funny - it isn't, it's very lazy and umimaginative 'humour' if you can even call it that.

I can’t believe that you genuinely don’t see any issue with an old white man who enjoys some influence voicing an opinion that a whole group of people are less likely to have a specific good quality than another, historically more privileged, group of people. Saying it’s just his opinion doesn’t change the fact that he is validating a lot of prejudice.

I don’t think he owes me sympathy silence. If he thinks men are funnier than women, I genuinely have no issue with his opinion.

I have for decades thought Michael Parkinson was a sexist, pompous prick. I could not understand the way he was lionised and adored. He was just plain creepy in his interview with Helen Mirren as a young actress and totally unprofessional in the way he pissed off Meg Ryan years later. In the Ryan case he had one job to do which was interview her and yet somehow he failed utterly as a talk show host and of course it was the woman who was blamed. The man is an arse and always has been. When he held his final show with all the favourite guests he had interviewed over the years there was not a woman among them, that speaks volumes about him.

I once heard Katy Brand addressing this notion that women can’t be funny. I think it was in response to Christopher Hitchens. I can’t remember her exact words but it was something along the lines of …….. a sense of humour is one of the things the defines humanity, it lifts us from being simple organisms fighting to survive. Denying the fact that women can be funny is othering, it takes away our humanity and makes us less than men. It is just one more way of making us into support humans who can appreciate male humour but cannot contribute anything original.

Maybe there are fewer female stand-up comedians but that is just one limited raucous type of humour. There are numerous witty female writers from Jane Austen onwards and today so many funny women in tv shows. I love Melissa McCarthy’s take on Sean Spicer. Kate McKinnon is brilliant and Leslie Jones doing a dragon impression on Seth Meyer’s show was a coffee meet screen splatter moment for me. I think Linda Smith was the wittiest person on radio 4 in the 90s, when she died I really felt like I had lost a friend. Thinking of the women currently on task master I loved Rose Matafeo and Jessica Knappett, they were not there just to make up the numbers they brought their own unique humour to the show. Women are funny we just don’t go around expecting men to polish our egos all the time.

Within what rights?

He’s a se it’s twit, but men always think they are funnier than women. If you’ve ever worked in customer services it’s always the men who make the ‘funny’ comments that we all have to smile politely at. Men are given more leeway than women are, that’s all.

Sexist twit. My phone is illiterate.

No, Sacha. No more book suggestions, please. Not until you can get the names of the authors right.

@Dahlietta

I can’t believe that you genuinely don’t see any issue with an old white man who enjoys some influence voicing an opinion that a whole group of people are less likely to have a specific good quality than another, historically more privileged, group of people. Saying it’s just his opinion doesn’t change the fact that he is validating a lot of prejudice.

What exactly is the “problem”?

Whilst you might not like the opinion, do you honestly think someone who doesn’t agree with him would suddenly be “turned”?

Men are given more leeway than women are, that’s all.

That is probably true.

Also fwiw having seen the interview between MP and Helen Mirren he came across as a patronising old lech - I can't take him seriously after that, so unprofessional.

Within what rights?

Sorry, I thought that phrase was self-explanatory. Just whether this is something he is entitled to say, legitimate etc.

Mmhmm, I mistake an author’s first name for a very similar one, and you won’t crack open a single book on the whole subject.

My my, doesn’t make for a very good marker for intelligence, does it?

By the by, you’ve made multiple grammatical errors in this thread yourself. There’s a sentence from a short while ago which is largely incoherent.

I disagree. I think the decision to verablise a bigoted thought is a good marker of a person's (lack of) intelligence.

It’s not bigotry to not think someone (or even a group of people) is as funny as someone else.

That is probably true.

😂😂😂 Oh, I can’t anymore! It’s just tragically funny!