humourless feminists: why don’t they just cheer up?
Roger Scruton has written a bizarre article for The American Spectator in which he argues against the censorship of jokes.Censorship Bad. I’m with him on that. The sole criterion for whether a joke is offensive is whether it is funny – that’s why so many people find my puns offensive, and why South Park gets away with mocking just about everyone.
But what disappointed me, was that Scruton (whose philosophical writing I read at university) reserved particular vitriol for feminists while defending sexist jokes:
"The literature of feminism is devoid of humor -- and advisedly so, for if it ever were to employ this resource it would die laughing at itself"
Of the myriad of insults hurled at women seeking fair and equal treatment with men, this is one (along with being hairy lesbians - btw, what's wrong with that?!) that returns with tedious predictability. It's so common that a blog, Girls Aren't Funny, has been set up to combat it.
Of course jokes about gender can be hysterical; though it’s unlikely I’d laugh too hard at the ‘women belong in the kitchen’ oeuvre, not because it denigrates women, but because describing women in this way is so hackneyed and unimaginative. I like jokes to surprise me, or provide an unexpected insight into the way the world is.
You can tell that Scruton’s accusation is part of the backlash against feminism, because you would (quite rightly) never see it aimed at other groups seeking equal rights. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are ‘serious statesmen’. Germaine Greer is ‘humourless’. It taps in to a mindset that says that women are unattractive when they deal with weighty issues, and that we’d prefer to see them giggling at some sparkly jewellery than campaigning at a podium.
Of course jokes about gender can be hysterical; though it’s unlikely I’d laugh too hard at the ‘women belong in the kitchen’ oeuvre, not because it denigrates women, but because describing women in this way is so hackneyed and unimaginative. I like jokes to surprise me, or provide an unexpected insight into the way the world is.
You can tell that Scruton’s accusation is part of the backlash against feminism, because you would (quite rightly) never see it aimed at other groups seeking equal rights. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are ‘serious statesmen’. Germaine Greer is ‘humourless’. It taps in to a mindset that says that women are unattractive when they deal with weighty issues, and that we’d prefer to see them giggling at some sparkly jewellery than campaigning at a podium.
Ellen DeGeneres. A funny woman.
But I don’t have to labour the point of how unfair Scruton is being, I can simply point out how untrue his assertion is. If he had read any feminist writing recently (particularly online) he’d see that it is brimming with humour and wit. Jezebel, Feministing, and the F-Word are some of my favourites.
I’m sorry Roger, but if you haven’t encountered legions of intelligent, funny women in your long and varied career, then you can’t have been looking further than your own nose – your loss!
kate s-b
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1 comments:
He did not comment on feminists per se. He was commenting on the literature of feminism which is "married" (sense of irony) to critical theory which is DEFINITELY devoid of humor. Scruton, being a philosopher, sees the logical problems rampant in feminist/critical theory and is commenting on that observation. What can one expect? These modes of thought are new and figuring themselves out...give them more term and it will coalesce. A philosopher trained in aristotlian logic like Scruton would laugh at the strange arguments that one can find in a goodly bit of feminist theory. He is not saying feminists are not funny. I like to think I am funny and I am a feminist. He is saying that their scholarship is dour...because it is!
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