"Are men funnier than women?"
Now, being a woman this of course is probably a biased question to ask. But, it really is interesting to hear the differences in what people think. I first started saying that female comics are underrepresented in the general media. The only way to be a successful female comic is to have a hit show, a great tag line, comedy stands up AND a great rack. However, he stopped me and said, "no, I mean generally. Think about your group of friends, who is funnier?" Now, personally, I have a mainly male-dominated set of friends. There are about 15 of us, give or take, with probably a 1/4 of them being women. The closest of the female friends consists a grand total of four of us. So, the odds are clearly not in our favor. But when I think about it, the men are funnier, HOWEVER on top of that those men are also extremely loud, and extremely extroverted. Which made me think: are men only perceived as funnier because they are already more dominating? And secondly, are they dominating because their main purpose in life is to get their dick sucked? Ergo, men are forced to be funnier to get the attention of women in order to get their dick sucked. Go figure that it would lead to this. However, this is a serious realization. I started looking at studies, one of which stated in its title "Humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is higher in males". And tons of blogs have written about this, including Chris Hitchens' famous Vanity Fair essay arguing that, on the whole, women aren't very funny.
I still don't know how I feel about it. I think when looking at my group of friends, that when my guy friends are joking around they are vying for attention in some way. I'm not saying this in a malicious way. But in the end, the women get butted out because they are not as dominating. Does that make them less funny? Hell to the no. It just means they haven't even been given the chance to make the joke. In this sense, the men's capability of being funny are based on strict personality traits within themselves, not based on the fact that they had a penis swinging between their legs. On top of that, the expectation for women to be funny is smaller, based on pre-existing gender based, culturally relevant stereotypes. In other words, women aren't funny, so why is this woman trying to make a joke?
Another compelling study done by University of California researchers revealed that men win the humor test, but by a very small margin. The researchers used blank New Yorker cartoons to have a set of men and women design a caption. Men edged out the women by 0.11 points, while about 90% of both male and female study participants agreed with the stereotype that men are funnier. The study stated "the differences we find between men's and women's ability to be funny are so small that they can't account for the strength of the belief in the stereotype".
The stereotype. I hate it. It's the worst (It is hilarious, when used in jokes though). But it is a fact of freaking life. I think that all women and men should be based on an equal playing field. But that will never happen until complete equality begins in pre-K, so that more Tina Feys and Amy Poehlers can be brought forward. Maybe when I'm 85, my daughters will be even funnier than I am and be allowed to do it without the flack of having a uterus.
So, what does this all mean? I think, slash I KNOW that I am attracted more to any human, male or female that is hilarious. But do I think that my male friends are better at it than my female friends? Nope. I just like them because they all make me laugh. A lot.
That's all I've got,
Coffey.
