Women: Not Funny? Guys actually believe this?

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Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on November 25, 2009 at 1:07pm

Lots of men get offended at fathers being shown as morons. I got tired of seeing guys like Drew Carey in TV-relationships with supermodels.

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Permalink Reply by Johnny on November 14, 2009 at 12:51am

Great response. I concur, Eric. That's a good point! I never thought about it like that!

Women tend to get SO offended when they're the butt of jokes, but I do cute, stupid, and embarrassing things all the time on purpose alongside more clever humor at other times because I like to make people laugh. I do something really stupid, get the response, and then let them know I was kidding. That's the way it works. You have to look either stupid or ridicule something stupid to generally get a laugh out of anyone.

I would agree with Hitchens in the sense that due to culture, women have less inclination to be funny. I don't think that this means that they can't be.

When people are laughing at you, you are in a state of vulnerability. Men often do this because women often need to feel that connection with a guy to become aroused. We are used to becoming vulnerable to get sex. (sorry to be so crude, but sex has a lot to do with the psychology of culture)

I do rather think that women need to be in a good sense of control in order to have sex in comparison to men. Laughing at a man makes a woman feel more comfortable at his openness and self-disclosure. I think there's a good case about why women don't need to be funny to the same extent that men do. I don't agree with the whole "intellectually inferior" thing. It simply has nothing to do with being funny. Being funny is the capacity to put yourself in a temporarily vulnerable situation in order to pursue a future goal. There is the clever type of humor, but there is also the slapstick, redneck, stupid kind. That's not all that intelligent, so if I excluded the clever humor like you excluded the dumb humor, I could say that it makes women more intelligent.

Neither is the case, however. I think your application to intelligence is a bit over-the top

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Permalink Reply by Gold Guy on November 15, 2009 at 11:33am

That article is weak on data, strong on opinion and dogma. Grandstanding generalities like "There is a huge belief that boys are better at math which is vastly out of proportion to any data that we have," How is it "huge" and where is the evidence that it is out of proportion? That is exactly the sort of statement you would hear if the data shows real difference and the speaker wishes to dismiss or ignore it.

Or this:
"The bottom line is we are still very much in the state of mixed findings when it comes to gender and brain processing,"
Translation: There are findings opposite of what the speaker wanted to find.

It is nothing but opinion. Gender feminists work very hard to deny differences. The only statistic in that article is a mean difference of 36 points on the math score of the SAT. News for ya, that is a big difference, more than a third of a standard deviation.

Then you throw in the red herring of unsubstantiated race issue. Completely irrelevant.

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Permalink Reply by Gold Guy on November 15, 2009 at 12:00pm

I don't have time to debunk all of that. Why don't you address my comments about your original link?

On the other hand, thanks for the first of those links, I didn't want to bring up the argument that the real difference between the sexes is due to the distribution rather than the mean because I didn't think it could be explained well in a discussion forum. When it comes to math differences you have both substantial mean difference and different distributions. People can spin and deny all day, but the data is pretty clear.

Permalink Reply by Johnny on November 15, 2009 at 12:16pm

... whaaat?

first of all, that's rude and childish
Second of all, I've never seen you PWN GG.

Permalink Reply by Johnny on November 17, 2009 at 3:06pm

oh, Jaqueline, how quickly you forgot our other polite discussion about how I agree with every freaking aspect about female equality and only oppose bigots.

If you don't think that some of the comments here were so biased that they ignored points, pulled straw-mans, and/or failed to support their cases, then that's your opinion I guess... I disagree. Some things the Nerd said were useful, others were not. Her argument wasn't bad at all in this case, actually... I adjudicated a draw. Personally I don't care if women are worse at math or not... if they are they are if they aren't they aren't. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't have equal access to mathematical jobs if they like them... kind of an empty argument to me.
I did like one response that pointed out that females tended to be better at literature/writing/teaching...all important skills and require plenty of intelligence. I agree with that as I tentatively agree with math... who is smarter depends on which you value more. Personally I value reading/writing more, so would you now have a problem with me saying that women are smarter? ( I would find you rather hypocritical if you did. That's ok for you, but it may limit how I perceive your future arguments.)

I don't think you could blame me for not condoning any kind of bigot. You can take any good cause and pursue it in extreme ways. My opinion of unneccissarily biased opinions is clearly more specific than yours is which is understandable because we tend to forgive people's faults more when they're on our side. You can't exonerate someone simply because they support a similar thing... I wouldn't support an atheist who went around bitching out theists and calling them nasty names on street corners without reasonable discussion even though I may technically agree with them on the identity of god, so why can't there be feminist bigots?

Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on November 25, 2009 at 1:08pm

Are women more attractive than men? Most men will say they are, and many women, even straight women, agree that even though they are attracted to men, women are still better looking.

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Permalink Reply by Dedre on November 12, 2009 at 12:34pm

Wow that is chauvinistic thinking;
and yet...as I read this, I was impartial to most of your examples as well, and that almost worried me to be honest. Then I remembered how much I enjoy Lisa Landry and Lynne Koplitz.
So with a deep breath of relief, I'd just say it all has to do with crummy tastes in humor :D

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Permalink Reply by David Miller on November 15, 2009 at 4:01am

Jokes like that are only funny if it is a little offensive to the (blank)-in-law. Men generally don't care as much about being ugly.

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Permalink Reply by Turtle Poser on November 13, 2009 at 12:30am

I'm a woman, and actually I sort of agree with the idea the most women aren't funny. The funniest comedy is mined from the depths of your thoughts and persona. This is dangerous territory for women - this is bitch-slapping country. When you're funny, you put your soul (metaphorically of course) on the line, and sometimes that soul isn't so good. Most women still like to see themselves as uniquely warm and nurturing. You betray your warm & nurturing side when you shoot for comic gold. Betraying those that you love, your ideals and your standards is comedic material. I've seen women do comedy and do it well -- Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, Ellen Generes & Iliza Schlesinger (2008 Last Comic Standing). Yes, I know there are more & better women comedians that those people. However, that's a much shorter list than the list of male comics.

Many women don't like being funny because it's socially dangerous. This I know way too well--I have been told that I'm funny. Being a funny woman isn't the best way to snag a man or to net a large group of female friends. Women like men who are funny, but that doesn't work in reverse. & Let's face it, women are still judged by how pretty they are. To quote Steve Martin, "Comedy isn't pretty."

Until more women deal with the "pretty", they're not going to be able to dish the funny.

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Permalink Reply by Billy Deaton on November 13, 2009 at 5:48pm

uh, plenty of women are funny, your date was an idiot.

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Permalink Reply by Bo Smallwood on November 14, 2009 at 12:08am

I would say the number of women and men that lack a sense of humor is generally equal.But, i will say guy's view it very differently than girl's.Guy's use a sense of humor more for a bonding purpose than anything else.Relating of humor play's a major role in most guy's friendship's.Some friendship's are even based solely on a sense of humor.I would say that's generally a guy thing.Rarely, guy's will hear that bonding humor come from a girl and it is very surprising when it happens.Very cool too i might add.Apparently you have that gift.Don't be surprised when you get off the wall responses such as you described.It is very much a compliment and means nothing more than that.

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