Atongla Rothrong
I vividly recall a male friend several years ago, looking up from a book of short fictions, written by a well known woman writer. “Why is women’s writing so uniformly humorless?” he asked. His tone was long-suffering and weary, but also genuinely perplexed. I responded hotly of course. I told him generalizations of this kind were odious. I told him that there were women and there were women, and basically to shut up! But I confess that I have come across the same opinion time and time again in different contexts.
There seems to be a widespread view that the more self-assured and independent women become, the more deficient they grow in a sense of humor. True, they may be more aware of their rights, more guilt free, more capable of shattering glass ceilings, more savvy about careers and contraception’s, about single malts and the sensex, but they seem to have sacrificed one vital ingredient in their psychological make-up: how to laugh, or at least that’s what men say (many of them) and so I decided to explore the issue.
Well yes, it’s true that the clown, the jester is traditionally a male figure, and that the life of the party is almost a man. And I’d believe it if a man unearth a statistic to claim that most internet and SMS humor are authored by men. Conceded. But it’s also time to remind ourselves of a few things about humor and its relationship with gender. Here’s my take on why women do have a sense of humor- and frequently have the last laugh as well.
Humor is never apolitical- “Some men wonder how they can live without women. The answer is – Cheaper” an example of the kind of joke frequently bandied- usually by one hearty male, who looks inordinately pleased at himself and his scintillating wit. There is a raucous two-whiskies-down laughter of the males present. Now, why is the volume of female mirth considerably muted? No point for guessing. Well, yes, of course most male humor- when it isn’t trite or plain banal- is rank sexist stuff! But thankfully, today’s women find it increasingly difficult to be canned laughter in
Marriage, workplace or party. They have an opinion on things including jokes and they aren’t afraid to air it. Does it mean they’re deficient in humor? Try it the other way; what if a woman at a gathering unleashed some reverse sexist ribaldry, dripping with double entendres about the male species? Well, I suspect there would be a deafening silence from the men, even while a cacophony of female cackles rends the air.
The humor of the subversive takes time to appreciate- It’s an old fact that the Nobles never understand the tastes of the common folk; the upper-class never figures out the Working-class; the Expert the peasant; the boss the employee; the master the slave; the right wing the left wing. Which means that humor at the margins is considered different from humor in the mainstream? The status quo has never understood what the dissenters and insurrections are all about. The inigmatic face of the oriental was a white imperialist view of the Asian. Little did the colonial overload suspect that his impassive subject actually found him and his pomposity, his notions of culture and racial superiority downright laughable! It works, I’ am afraid, not so differently with men and women. In a patriarchal society, female humor is essentially accessible to women, rather than to men. The husband would never believe that the demure wife who greets him in the evening was actually a cackling hussy at a women’s luncheon, the beauty parlor- just hours ago.
Active tinkle glands don’t mean we’ve got no funny bone! – There seems to be a pervasive belief that women are prone to weeping, not laughter. Well, if that’s been the case, let’s accept that the world hasn’t been particularly kind to women over the centuries. So perhaps there hasn’t been much of a reason to laugh. Despite that, women do manage to squeeze in a fair amount of it, I think. A fully functional emotional life is crucial to integrated living and psychological well being. This means suppressing neither one’s laughter nor one’s tears. If the ‘New Men’ is finally learning that it’s alright for him to release his stiff upper lip and Sniffle into his hanky, the ‘New Women’ knows that it’s perfectly okay for her to throw back her head and emit a hearty guffaw! In the medieval folklore, we’ve been brought up on, the only women who laughed or more accurately, cackled-is the Witch. The beautiful princess merely wept, except at the end (happily ever after). With such childhood indoctrination, is it any wonder that female mirth in real life has has always been a subdued affair? But today’s woman is her own person, with her own brand of humor, and social labels, be damned!
The victim identity is old hat- It’s often alleged that women (like other traditionally oppressed group) derive their identity from their collective experience of victimization. Contemporary mystic Eckhart Tolle call’s it the ‘PAIN BODY’. With the increase in opportunities for creative self- expression through the 20th century, women have produced art that distilled deep rage or grief. This may have given rise to somewhat cynical view like narcissistic stuff. What’s overlooked is the fact that there is always a distinction between good art and bad art. With increasing empowerment, however, we are seeing that there is room for a vast and varied landscape of emotions in women’s art. Joy, for instance. As well as great belly heaving laughter.
A sense of humor is not just the ability to laugh at other people, but also being able to laugh at the self. Male or Female, how many of us are really capable of that?
