“Just a Joke” - Sexism
There’s a fine line between telling a joke and insulting someone, and today we’re going to be talking about what’s considered a joke and what’s not.
First of all; any joke at all can be offensive if it’s about someone’s insecurity, meaning that if you have a friend whom you know is insecure about anything about themselves and you joke about it, it is considered offensive and rude.
Second of all; we need to understand that each person can joke about their sex and still be sexist. For example, males making a joke of other males crying or females making a joke of other females for not wearing makeup are still considered sexist jokes.
Third of all, making such a sexist remark can sometimes be considered a joke if it’s said to a friend without regard to their sex and if you know that they’re not self-conscious or insecure about that part of themselves. To elaborate further, if you make a joke out of your male friend for crying when you know that they’re comfortable with crying and you’re not saying it because that friend is male then it’s not considered offensive since the person himself isn’t offended, or if you make a joke out of your female friend for not wearing makeup when you know that they’re comfortable with not wearing makeup and you’re not saying it because that friend is female then it’s not considered offensive since the person herself isn’t offended.
Moving on, the reason I wrote this blog is that I saw a meme on Instagram along the lines of;
“gal: I’m not pessimistic and I’ll make you the happiest guy in the world
dude: and I’m telling you, you’ll trouble me”
and I noticed that out of the people I follow who’ve liked that meme, only 1 of them was male while the rest were all females and that made me feel sorry for the fact that our society teaches females that for guys to like us, we need to find sexist jokes about our own sex funny and laugh them off as tho they’re not a big deal, otherwise you’re a loud, aggressive woman that no man would want to get near because you’ll be tiring to them, troubling.
In today’s society tho, if you stand up against sexist remarks, some males would actually consider you a strong female and show you respect, however, some of these males are the same dudes who tell you it’s just a joke when you speak up against a meme like the one I just mentioned or any meme that categorises traits into “female” and “male.”
The joke about the gal telling the dude that she’s not pessimistic, that she’ll make him happy and the dude telling her that this isn’t true, that she’s still gonna trouble him is sexist on so many levels;
1. Females are pessimistic and “hormonal.”
2. The idea that a female exists purely for the happiness of her male partner or that the female needs to convince the male that she’ll bring him happiness in order for him to be in a relationship with her even though a relationship should bring them both happiness, equally.
3. The male belittling the female and saying that what she said isn’t true because, apparently, males know everything *cough**mansplainer**cough* it has even been proven that males tend to say that they’re sure of stuff that they’re not sure about at all while females do the opposite.
4. The idea that the female is going to be troubling to the male as if he’s a blessing to be in her life or something ?? Any relationship will have ups and downs because of either partner regardless to sex and gender so this doesn’t even make sense beyond the fact that it’s a sexist norm made up by males to make females feel guilt whenever anything goes wrong.
All in all, I want to end this with something a friend of mine once told me about jokes in general, it is that the reality of jokes is opinions we fear to say out loud and that there’s no such a thing as “jokes,” rather they’re just truths. My interpretation of this is that we put our vulnerabilities and what we consider our “weak side” regarding our sex under the idea of “socially unaccepted traits” and shame people of the same sex who’re strong enough to face the society and show this side of them.
In the end, this is just my opinions and interpretations based on different situations I’ve gone through and heard of + viewpoints my friends shared with me so, if you have a different opinion or disagree with me regarding anything, feel free to share your opinion in the comments section that is always down below! I won’t reply to any of the comments to make space for all readers to express themselves freely.
Thank you for reading, and have a good day/ afternoon/night!
