From: maufd@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr J S Graley)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Secretly Wishing... (was: Feminist Jokes)
Date: 12 Nov 1992 17:57:37 -0000
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
NNTP-Posting-Host: lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk

In article <1992Nov11.044424.14840@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>
>> Lame joke #117
>
>This is the second time in this thread for this lame joke.
>Often, someone gets a project going to number all the jokes
>in rec.humor, so one could just say #117!  #117!  One can
>see why.  However, it's somewhat interesting in the same
>way as our previous belly-buster: it shows that it's 
>important for some people to say that feminists have no 
>sense of humor.  This is a charge often leveled at people 
>who are seriously concerned with anything: politics, 
>religion, business, ecology, morals, poverty, starvation, 
>sex, drugs, rock'n'roll -- if you care, you don't have a 
>sense of humor.
>
>But as a matter of fact, the first writing I ever saw in
>modern (1950's and after) feminism was the "Gainesville Pink
>Paper" a collection of essays including the now famous "The
>Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm."  Many of them were satirical;
>I remember especially "I'd Like to Have a Wife" (written by
>a woman).  Somewhat later _Ms_ put out an edition of
>feminist humor.  Like blacks and other marginalized groups,
>women used humor to cope with their status problems, but the
>humor remained invisible to the whites / men / straights at 
>the center of the society, who were generally its objects.
>
>Clearly, in a situation where one's centrality or importance
>was coming under attack by those previously marginalized,
>and humor was a weapon, a common reaction would be denial,
>and a method of denial would be to make up jokes about the
>humorlessness of the attackers.
>

The level of your logic here is in need of comment:
Firstly to your top paragraph, I think is is a spurious 
freudian extrapolation to announce it is 'important for 
some people to say that feminists have no sense of humour'.
This is not the reason for the existance of humour in
general, and there is no reason why it should apply here.

I would not personally say feminists have no sense of humour.
The reason for their being offended by jokes about them is
simply that nobody likes having a joke told _about_ them. 
The generally accepted rule with humour is that no person
or group is 'exempt' from it. Every group in society I can
think of, oppressed or not, gets jokes made about them.

The second paragraph of yours backs this up; indeed it's 
currently fairly normal to see feminist anti-male humour
plastered on about 1 in 10 university room doors in this
country. Being as honest as I hope any follow-up-ers to be,
I would say this is offensive to me but I would never 
demand it to be removed because I think humour is a person's
right.

It demonstrates more plainly than any other example the 
inherent inequality of the world which feminists would
have us live in, when you consider the 'feminist-acceptability'
of the humour produced by and about feminism. If you post
5 anti-male jokes on this newsgroup, you will become immensely
popular and, if I understood an earlier example correctly, 
some female readers will want to go out with you. Try posting
5 anti-feminist jokes and you will be flamed until all is left
is a smoking cinder. You may get mail bombed. Your sex life will
certainly be attacked. 
Try it...

          ~Morley

PS The third paragraph is hogwash. Did you make it up yourself?
Newsgroups: alt.feminism