AMUSING?, NOT REALLY!

Read this!
‘A dying woman said she wanted to ‘feel like a woman’ just before she died, so a nearby man agreed to help her out. He took off his shirt, handed it to her, and said: ‘Here iron this’

‘What’s funnier than a female comedian? Everything’

‘I just saw a woman getting into a car the wrong way
Through the driver’s door’

I can hear your unapologetic giggle. So here’s another one for you, ‘Strange thing about women's brain, there's nothing right in left side, and nothing left on the right side’.
Oh! I can see someone there not appreciating my ‘harmless’ efforts in creating edgy-hilarious content, I can see you rolling your eyes at me with annoyance. You must be a woman, huh? But, did you understand the joke? Perpetually butt-hurt species, Come on! Lighten up, have a sense of humor. Are you a feminist?

YES!, these jokes, may I say crude ‘sexist’ rib ticklers? We all have heard them. These jokes made by our, ‘Oh so funny’ male friends, family members, colleagues, comedians on television, on the internet and everywhere. Jokes about women’s bodies, women drivers, female roles blah blah blah , the list is endless. Those sexist digs that some seemingly perky women laugh upon or, some who simply smile and nod to conceal their embarrassment and awkwardness and to ‘fit-in’ with the group or, some like me who just can’t hide their exasperation and are left with the unsettling thought of, ‘But, I’m sure we can do better than this, can’t we?’
‘But, then it’s just a joke. Why not take a joke like it is? Just laugh it off’, some might argue. Yet this is anything but a satisfactory justification to a misogynist, patriarchal mentality that flutters its views and serves them in this box that is labeled ‘Jokes’. It speaks of a psyche that sees women in this invisible cage of stereotypes that we as a society have and continue to fight with. According to studies, ‘exposure to sexist humor can lead to tolerance of hostile feelings and discrimination against women’. It is so effortless to mindlessly laugh at such jokes but it is actually when we stop and think that we realize how demeaning and derogatory they are. In a world where gender equality still seems like a utopia and women continue to be treated as sex objects, I don’t find any humorous appeal in such content.

Having said that, I firmly believe ‘To each his own’. I don’t fancy censorship in areas of art, music, films and other creativity based fields. However, can we ever come to a point, where we don’t make such prejudiced humor? Where we don’t laugh upon a gender’s vulnerability? Or it’s funnier and more alluring to crack up on, otherwise considered offensive topics. Does it make our content any less comical when we make jokes that don’t leave a section of the audience squirming with embarrassment? Moreover, where do we a draw a line? Self-censorship, that’s a thing too. Let’s think about it!