Anonymous asked: I'd like to know what your take on sexist jokes are. I am a girl and the other day a guy friend told a group of friends (including me) a sexist joke. I just couldn't bring myself to find it funny, and felt quite offended. I felt that he should have had the courtesy to not tell it to my face, at the very least. Am I being overly sensitive here? Should I loosen up? :/
This is probably a controversial response, but I don’t have a problem with sexist jokes themselves. I think it all depends on the context and the joke-teller. My friends and I routinely tell jokes that are generalizations about race, class, gender, religion, and even sexual orientation, but I think part of the reason why I find it easy to laugh at them is because we know that they’re stereotypes. When you’re talking about foot-binding and fisting, it’s hard to believe that the joke-teller is being entirely serious.
I think that it’s far more uncomfortable a situation when you don’t know what the joke-teller’s stance is and you’re left wondering if they actually believe what they’re saying. I’ve definitely been offended before by casual acquaintances publicly making derogatory jokes that I wouldn’t second-guess if it came from a friend in private. I’m not the Propriety Police, but I personally wouldn’t tell jokes like that in a random group of folks because there’s no way for me to tell if they’ll understand my sense of humor, be terribly offended, or worse, take what I say seriously. But ultimately, making a sexist joke isn’t the same as holding sexist views, and I find the latter far more problematic. If you suspect that your friend isn’t just trying to be funny but actually believes the stuff he says, then you might want to have a conversation with him about it or at least let him know that you weren’t amused by the attempt at humor.
More burning questions? Ask Lena.
