Just seen a nasty little sexist 'joke' on my ex's facebook ... this is actually quite nasty isn't it?

[JaneS]

I am playing riiight into the stereotype 'humourless feminist'. However, I've just see my ex's facebook profile (we've both been invited to the same party and his profile shows up; he's not a friend of mine, before you wonder).

The phrase he's chosen as his top favourite quotation, the bit of information he really, really wants to share with the world is:

'You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.'

My immediate reaction was to feel a bit revolted. I used to snigger at sexist jokes in very 'ooh, I'm so grown-up, it's all humour innit' way so I feel quite ashamed.

My ex's dad's favourite joke was 'Why does a bride wear white?' 'To fit in with the other kitchen appliances'.

I'm depressed about it all. Are these jokes generally acceptable do you think, and do you think most people you know would just laugh and not worry about it? I think the first one is much worse than the second, btw.

Yes, the joke is sexist and very unfunny.

Looking on the bright side he is your ex. Phew.

If he is single he is also advertising to any woman, who might be interested in him, that he is a pillock.

Yeah, but why didn't I run a mile when his dad made the crack about women/domestic appliances? Why has this kind of nasty humour become kind of ok? And why?

I really think that lots of my generation think 'risque' (=offensive) humour is something they should find funny as a badge of how clever they are.

I don't quite know how to sort through my own reactions to this - I do watch a fair bit of TV comedy and am often torn between finding a lot of it funny and then finding parts make me incandescent.

IIRC the first 'joke' is a quote from Dorothy Parker who was asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence and came up with it on the hoof. If that's true, I think that was quite clever of her and you have to remember that the time in which she lived was very different to now. Not funnt enough to repeat on bloody Fb though

I find the second joke worse TBH

Ah, didn't know that el, thanks. Instinctively I want to say if Dorothy Parker said it it must be ok, so I like your explanation of why it could be.

I think it's more that I find it offensive said by a man? There's a bit of a nasty sexual streak to it in that context (and obviously there is for me because I was fool enough to sleep with him, but that's another story).

The thing is, used women to find this sort of joke funny? I guess Parker did or she wouldn't have made it, but ...

I think that neither joke is remotely funny or acceptable and if I was to see that on someones facebook profile I would decide that he was a twat without needing any further information.

neither joke is even funny. surely they can see that or are they actually that unintelligent. thsi is a genuine question btw. does he just tell jokes because they are sexist or does he actually think they are funny? do people jsut laugh because they are sexist jokes or do tehy actually think they are funny (although, I'm not sure it can be the latter as to find that funny you would need to 'get' the joke and tehre isn't anything to 'get')

Agree with Casmama. However, don't beat yourself up for accepting stuff like that joke from your ex's dad. I used to have to bite my tongue constantly round my ex's family in the interests of keeping the peace.

I think in the initial context that Dorothy Parker said it, it was more of a clever play on words than a sexist joke, and taboo-busting as well (nice ladies weren't even supposed to know words like that). Your XP's use of it is demonstrating that he's a woman-hating knob. Aren't you glad he's not your partner any more?

I dislike his dad's "joke" much more because it's so utterly dehumanising. At least the other one is slightly clever. Although only really in it's original context. Unpleasant as a favourite quote although handy for knowing who to steer clear of (I guess he might not even be your ex if he'd advertised his unpleasantness in advance?)

No they're not funny. And don't feel bad for having laughed in the past; it's what 'society' tells us we have to do to be 'normal'. So we react accordingly (and then beat ourselves up about it)

They're not funny. I remember my dh making a 'jokey' comment along those lines once, quite early on; I burst out laughing saying "you are joking, aren't you? you don't actually believe that, do you?". Of course, he said he didn't, but in retrospect I'm pretty sure he did.

The type of jokes people tell give you much insight into their own beliefs - even if they think they don't really believe them, iyswim.

Boo, I think he and lots of other people really do find them funny. But what they're laughing at isn't the 'joke' itself so much as the amusement of putting one finger up at political correctness - that's the way he'd see it.

Sparkling - Oh Yes!

I think the reason I react more strongly to the first one is the implication that a woman who's exploited by men for sex, is therefore thick. A bit creepy.

The friend I have in common with this guy would call herself a feminist (it's much more part of her public persona than it is mine, I think). I have a feeling she thinks it's just sort of funny, or acceptable.

I have to confess that I do think they're both funny - on their own terms, but they're terms we don't accept. First one is a clever pun (and taboo-busting in its time as SGB said) and the second has a quite clever twist which expresses something about the way women's role used to be seen.

But: 1. meaning changes according to context and both of them now strongly express sexist knobbery and quite nasty woman-hating. (I don't mean they were ever ok, but in a context where sexism is less normalised to tell such jokes is to call for more sexism.)

1. the fact that I get the joke with both of them doesn't mean I think it is ok for someone to retell them. Someone could come up with some incredibly clever and witty wordplay on the n-word and the fact that it was clever and witty wouldn't outweigh the racism. You can choose not to laugh at something even if at some level you 'get' the joke.

thinking back to undergraduate philosophy and the concept of a 'speech act', telling these jokes today is quite an aggressive act, more so than when they originated.

Also LRD is spot on about our generation actually thinking it is sophisticated to tell offensive jokes; is it maybe a way of saying 'I am so sophisticated I can step outside our own culture in which these things are not allowed; I transcend time, unlike you thick feminists who think that meanings are absolute.'
But that ignores the aggression and the fact that these jokes have a particular meaning inside this context, and the meaning is horrible.

Thanks seth, you explained that so well.

What do you think about TV comedy then? I do often find a lot of it funny, but a lot is also jokes against women. And saying (as I would) that there are jokes against all sorts of groups of people including those from the comedians' own demographic, doesn't change that.

For me that's a different definition of funny. I get them, I understand them and can see the link between what they have done and how humour is constructed. Wouldn't describe them as funny though.

Alice - maybe I wasn't being honest enough in my last post. When I say I do actually find them funny, I don't just mean I 'see' the joke, I mean I would actually be amused and might even laugh.
But that doesn't mean I have a superior sense of humour and people who don't like it are prudes - I'm not sure what it does mean but it is probably not to my credit.

LRD - am pondering tv comedy. I don't watch much but I do sometimes watch Top Gear which is about as sexist as they come.
DH gets Viz and I laugh at some of the sexist stuff in that while knowing it's sexist but there is also stuff that is so vile I can't look at it (eg, for those who are familiar with it, Roger Mellie amuses me even though the joke is this awful middle aged tv presenter getting away with being sexist but Roger's Profanisaurus makes me feel physically sick, it is so woman-hating.)

maybe the whole thing comes down to 'compromises we make while living in the patriarchy', like so many issues? Is it similar to the 'knowing it's not right that women are under so much pressure to wear make up but wearing it anyway because it does make us feel a lot better even though we know that the reason why it makes us feel so much better is that we are living in a society that values women for how they look' thing?
ie some feminists will conscientiously object to sexist humour more by never watching this stuff and never laughing it at, others will put up with more to allow themselves a bit of fun and relaxation given that tv may not offer us the choice of non-sexist humour to watch. And there are some who are further down the road of seeing through it, to the extent that it doesn't make them laugh anyway, just like there are feminists who say 'well make-up doesn't make me feel good anyway, it makes me feel like I've dolled myself up for the benefit of the patriarchy, I feel better about myself without it thank you very much.'

does that analogy make sense?

seth that makes sense to me, and i can totally see what you mean about the jokes being clever and you wouyld find that amusing, but for me the sexist aspect would have my jaw on the floor. then again, it is all down to how much of a compromise we as individuals are willing to make. that's not to say i haven't laughed at sexist jokes in the past because some of them are incredibly clever and that overrides the sexist element.

I get you SSM. You see I'm the kind of person who even struggles to find something like the Full Monty funny as I get caught up in the massive sadness of the situation they are in. Not saying at all that people shouldn't laugh at something like the Full Monty, just that I get really caught up in the massive unfairness of the social history perhaps too much. I don't see it as a good thing and sometimes wish I could switch that bit of me off.

A FB friend of mine posted the joke about the prostitute saying she'd been raped, the policeman asks when, she says "when I realised the cheque bounced". I put "Rape isn't funny " on his status.

I didn't dare look to see if he'd taken it down.

Re comedy, I used to watch Mock the Week, and then there was one week when someone mentioned a woman in passing - it seemed like the floodgates opened. The revolting bile and venom pouring out about women just took my breath away. I can't watch it now. In fact I can't watch any of those BBC "boys club" comedy shows now. If you were visiting Earth from another planet and you watched BBC comedy you'd think women were about 10% of the population.

seth - yes, that makes a lot of sense. I really appreciate your posts in general.

*Allarum) - Hmm, yes. I watch Mock the Week but on occasion have found it incredibly insulting. I'd love to be able to rationalize it by saying that (eg) Frankie Boyle used to joke against himself as a Scot, but I'm not sure it stands up. I have to say I do still find it very funny, which is a big part of why I wrote this OP.

Skeleton - yes - and I may be being unfair, but it annoys me that this is seen as so witty, when it's mildly funny but not, to my mind, hilarious. If Parker made the line up on the spot, that is pretty funny. In repetition ... well, it's quite a clumsy pun, no?

I suppose where I'm coming from is I always judge those people who laugh too hard at Shakespeare's 'puns' because they're somehow meant to convey something much funnier than the actual weak witticism ... I feel as if there's something similar going on here, that the joke itself isn't too strong but we feel as if we must justify it by saying it is?

i don't know anyone who would make this type of joke. And neither do you, now :)

Incidentally why do you think they are clever? There's nothing clever about them

That is a welcome thought, you're right!

It wasn't me who said I thought the joke/my ex was clever though.

I think that possibly when Parker had to think of a wordplay on the spot, it might have been clever and it's possible (as someone said) that she was doing it primarily to shock, and therefore had to buy into her society's ways of thinking in order for the shock value to be comprehensible.

But I actually think using this sort of 'joke' as one of the (very few) bits of public information you share about yourself isn't clever at all.