Ditz

Issue date: 3/18/08 Section: Vanities

Media Credit: googleimages.com

You've read them in an email; you've seen them in a Facebook group or a MySpace bulletin. They're jokes and lists with title like Men vs. Women, Man Rules, and Woman Rules. Essentially, they XX stereotypical male and female behavior in a light and humorous manner. We read them, giggle at a few and go about our day. Perhaps we repost them or forward them to friends. However, these seemingly innocuous lists and jokes speak worlds about the ways in which we uphold gender stereotypes that in most other instances we would reject. The key is humor. By making outright insults appear funny and lighthearted, their deeply sexist and even hateful messages are ignored. If someone dares to speak up and express disapproval or insult they are instantly dismissed with, "God, it's just a joke!"

The explicit and implicit messages dictating how "we are" in fact inform us of how we should be. They police us into performing the appropriate, expected gender behavior by narrowing the options regarding what and how men and women should be. Women only care about shopping and makeup, men are utterly disinterested in intimacy and feelings. Without even realizing it, we internalize these messages and with retelling perpetuate them. If we are willing to be the wet blanket who looks past the glossy humor, it's easy to see how these jokes make a mockery of people. They belittle, trivialize, and marginalize. People are complex and endlessly varied, but with these jokes we become a series of hollow archetypes. These attempts at humor ignore how we as a society have created this reality-a reality in which men and women are pitted against each other, forever in opposition, fighting the impossible battle of the sexes.

The jokes trivialize both men and women, but the ways they hurt men are often overlooked. Perhaps it's just harder to spot. We're used to recognizing what is derogatory towards women, but when it comes to men, it can be almost invisible. Men aren't supposed to be insulted or feel marginalized - that's what women do, isn't it? However, again and again men are painted as a bunch of stupid lugs who couldn't possibly be loving, caring fathers. They're not interested in intimacy or even what the women in their lives talk about. A perfect example from a Men vs. Women list:

"Women: A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams.

Continued...

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