From: beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver)
Subject: Double Standards for Insensitivity
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 19:33:39 GMT


The following article was rejected from soc.feminism, in response to:

A discussion about whether a Women's Studies professor who told 
"offensive" jokes (see below) and then complained,

               "There are still some professors here at Poly who
                don't realize that making jokes about womens' anatomy
                constitutes sexual harassment."

was acting insensitively or hypocritically or denying sexism against men.


In article <1b1p9bINNd7d@agate.berkeley.edu> cindy@meshugge.media.mit.edu (Cindy Blank-Edelman) writes:
>dgross writes:
>
>> I realize that me-too-ism has irritated many people in soc.feminism,
>> but I couldn't help but respond to this post.  Denial and
>> insensitivity is yet another sexism complaint that turns out to be a
>> two-way street.
>
>[examples of sexist comment and flasher joke....]
>
>I don't think your example was the best one you could use, because it
>did involve a flasher, not just a typical man.  However, you
>obviously thought it was anti-male and insensitive, so I wonder what
>bothered you about it as a man.  Why did you feel offended?  

Let me repeat Dave Gross's reference:

dg>       I'm in the women's studies minor at Cal Poly.  One quarter, I
dg>       was taking a WS class, and the professor would occasionally
dg>       start the class with a joke.  These jokes usually targeted
dg>       men, and on a couple of occasions the jokes were very
dg>       offensive.  One I remember was about a flasher who asked a
dg>       woman "Well, what do you think?" and she responded, "It looks
dg>       like a penis, only smaller..."

+Why+ is it funny?  Consider that carefully, and you may discover 
why it might be offensive and insensitive -- even more so in its context.


>I also want to say that there definitely are anti-male jokes that get
>a big laugh from a lot of women -- including feminists like me.  There
>are jokes that stereotype men as being insensitive, unintuitive,
>overly involved in things like sports, etc.

 "I also want to say that there definitely are anti-female jokes that get
 a big laugh from a lot of men -- including men like me.  There
 are jokes that stereotype women as being premenstrual, idiotic,
 overly involved in things like hair care, etc."

>I think that the one thing such "humor" usually expresses is anger
>towards a sexist society.  It is women fighting back, turning the
>tables, taking revenge for all of the anti-woman stuff that is out
>there, and for all of the anti-woman humor that we hear.  It is a
>release for me, a kind of catharsis, and a way to express my
>frustrations without getting angry all the time."

 "I think that the one thing such "humor" usually expresses is anger
 towards a sexist society.  It is men fighting back, turning the
 tables, taking revenge for all of the anti-man stuff that is out
 there, and for all of the anti-man humor that we hear.  It is a
 release for me, a kind of catharsis, and a way to express my
 frustrations without getting angry all the time."


>That being said, I think that anti-male humor is still dangerous.
...
>But how else to express our frustrations, to laugh at the situation?  

As long as you recognize both aspects and don't apply double standards
as Dave Gross's professor did, then humor is a fine way to relieve
frustrations -- as long as it doesn't dump them on others.

Don
-- 
beaver@cs.psu.edu                       Opinions from the PC-challenged
Newsgroups: alt.feminism