Rant about Body Parts

One of Sigmund Freud’s more famous theories is about penis envy, according to which the defining aspect of the sexual development of girls is the realisation that they don’t have a penis.  A lifetime of misery and inadequacy ensues.

There are various feminist and other criticisms of penis envy as a psychoanalytical theory.  My favourite is the one provided by the Finnish novelist and historian Kaari Utrio in her excellent Eevan tyttäret: Eurooppalaisen naisen, lapsen ja perheen historia (Daughters of Eve: The History of Women, Children and Families in Europe – unfortunately not translated).  Rather devastatingly for Herr Freud, Ms Utrio points out that as a matter of historical reality, societal norms were so strict at the time and in the social circles Freud was writing and theorising about that girl children simply had in all likelihood no idea what a penis was, and most certainly had never seen one.  It would therefore have been pretty difficult for them to have any thoughts or feelings on the lack of it. 

Yeah, take THAT, Freud!

But there is another theory, not exactly the opposite of, but different in nature from, penis envy.  It has been developed by yours truly.  I call it “breast envy”, or just “boob envy” among friends.

This is how it usually goes:  I’m sitting in a pub (the scene is inevitably a pub) with some female friends.  Male friends of someone in the group join, and conversation and merriment continue.  After a few drinks one of the men can no longer peel his eyes off the upper body of one of the women, usually someone well-endowed in that department and wearing a top that exposes a generous helping of cleavage.  Inspired by this vision, the man in question bursts out something along the lines of “man, if I had boobs (/breasts/tits), I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off them.  I’d be playing with them ALL THE TIME.”

While this would be unlikely to be the case (I haven’t seen lesbians, who are presumably attracted to female breasts, caress incessantly their own), it is quite a sweet pronouncement nonetheless.  It takes a rather obvious, defining attribute of the opposite sex and comments on its desirability – not just as something to fondle, or something to have, but something to have so as to fondle.  It doesn’t objectify a woman through her breasts like telling her he wants to have a squeeze of her pair would.  Nor does it take the lack of that attribute in the speaker himself as something that lessens him as a person, like penis envy does in the case of women.  Instead, it is “just” a compliment on how nice boobs are.

It is great to see in this world of double meanings, unintended (or intended) insults and constant battle between sexism and stifling political correctness something so unreservedly nice as boob envy. 

Any other examples?

Rant against Funny Women

A few weeks ago I wrote about funny women, and suggested that we feminists could also lighten up a bit from time to time.  British feminist Laurie Perry disagrees.  Writing about Naomi Wolf’s latest book Perry takes a general swipe at the present generation of what she calls “celebrity faux-feminists” who “provoke without challenging” and whose point is “not to challenge patriarchy, but to distract attention away from it”.

Are funny feminists missing the point?  Or worse, more or less willingly perpetuating the problem they are committed to fighting?  What is, more generally, the role of humour in political activism?

I’m a fan of stand-up comedy and good stand-up is often political and risqué.  For example, Finnish-Iranian comedian Ali Jahangiri makes “pizza jokes”, where a part of his routine revolves around a stereotypical immigrant pizzeria owner that speaks Finnish with a “funny” accent.  Or Bülent Ceylan, a hugely popular German comedian, who in shows such as “Döner for one” entertains his crowd with a never ending flow of stereotypes about Turkish immigrants.

First point I need to make is that these are the kinds of jokes that Jahangiri and Ceylan can make.  I cannot, and neither can you unless you are a dark-skinned immigrant in Finland or a German of Turkish extraction.  I can joke about women as bitches, whereas men cannot.  Only a disabled person can make “cripple” jokes, only a gay person can make “fag” jokes and only a holocaust survivor can make holocaust jokes.  Nobody except a person who is personally the butt of the joke can make them,* in every other instance the issue is highly likely to be one of prejudice and offense masquerading as humour.

I would have thought that this was pretty self-evident, but it continues to baffle me how common “rape jokes” are.  (If you don’t believe me, see here, here and here for just a few recent examples.)  So here comes the angry feminist: Stop making them!  They’re not funny!  In fact they’re incredibly hurtful, offensive and threatening!  Only a rape victim can make a rape joke and even that has to be about her (or him, in fairness), NOT about a veiled threat towards the person to whom it is addressed.

Having covered the basics, I get to the second, more important point: Is it funny?  The problem with my two examples of Jahangiri and Ceylan is that they are not very funny.**  They take a stereotype and pander to it.  This is, I think, the problem that Laurie Perry was complaining about in the New Statesman column I linked above.  It is also the problem that Ariel Levy discussed in Female Chauvinist Pigs addressing the emergence of a whole cultural phenomenon whereby men did not have to make stereotypical jokes about women, as women were making them.  That indeed risks distracting attention from the problem, and even reinforcing it.  The thinking goes as follows: Sexual objectification of women’s bodies must be okay, since women are doing it. And in any event, it’s just a bit of fun, a joke, geddit?  Don’t be such a tightarse.  Chillax, get a sense of humour!

Same with the pizza jokes: Immigrants, their accents and the fact that they end up starting fast food businesses because of employment discrimination in Finland cannot be that serious, if Jahangiri is making a joke of it.

A good political joke does not take a stereotype and reinforce it.  It takes a stereotype and turns it on its head, SUBVERTS it.  That is funny, smart, fresh, surprising... and therefore effective as a tool in political activism.  I could give plenty of examples but my present favourite is the hilarious and fiendishly intelligent Chris Rock with this video, made in the run up to the 2012 US presidential election.  He takes the stereotype of white prejudice against a black president and ...

Well, see – and laugh – for yourself.

What's your view?  Are rude and offensive jokes ok?  Where does the line go?  Are there any lines or is everything permitted, as long as it is funny?  Do jokes make a good addition to the activist toolbox?

*Yes, I know that Phyllis Diller’s fat jokes that I linked in my 3 March post fail this test. Darn!

**With the exception of the name.  "Döner for one" is actually a pretty funny twist on "Dinner for one" -- a weird German New Year's tradition.

Rant about Funny Women

There are these enduring images of what a “feminist” looks like in our collective consciousness.  Let’s see...  She is not terribly attractive.  She is not wearing make-up, or a bra.  She’s in loose clothing, but if you get a glimpse under her arms, you will see that her pits are hairy. 

Most importantly: She is angry.  Her fist is waving in the air and she is shouting.

Well, ladies and gents, there has been a lot to be angry about, and to some extent there still is.  But this does not mean that we should be angry all the time, and I also admit that sometimes the message gets across better when made in a funny way.

This is something I have discovered recently to my delight: funny feminists.  I read Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman not too long ago, ready to be disappointed after all the reviews raving how hilarious it was.  To my surprise I discovered that it was... hilarious.  Here is a pretty good portrait/review that gives the gist of some of the stuff.  I also found my current favourite feminist rant site Bitch through a link to this LOL-worthy “review”.  What better way of saying it than with pictures of cats?

Then there are of course women whose job it is to be funny, and even when not “feminists” in the deliberate sense, they are in fact trailblazers in an industry where not having a penis is a real disadvantage, as a recent interesting, but rather depressing study shows:

“Gender determines the proportion of speaker and audience laughter.  Whether they are speaker or audience (in mixed-sex groups), women laugh more often than men. ... Neither males nor females laugh as much with female speakers as they do with male speakers, helping to explain the paucity of female comedians.

On average, men are the best laugh getters. ... Laughter is sexy.  Women laughing at men are responding to more than their prowess in comedy.  Women are attracted to men who make them laugh (ie, "have a good sense of humour"), and men like women who laugh in their presence.”

In this mildly depressing context I will simply bow to Phyllis Diller, a pioneer in the field who recently passed away.  Here is a good obituary from the NYT, and here a sample of her work... ok, TOTALLY un-PC, but fat jokes are just too funny!

But now I come to the crux of today’s rant.  It is great to have women cracking it in the funny business, and even better to have feminists laugh at themselves, the patriarchy and the world in general.  But the absolutely BEST part is when it is the women who’ve made it, the ones at the top of their game, whatever powerful stuff that game is.  It made my day when I discovered this: A tumblr called “Texts from Hillary”, set up with pictures of famous (American) people texting coupled always with one of a stone-faced Hillary Clinton, both with captions of what was purportedly in the texts between Ms Clinton and whomever.  Some of them are funny, some less so, some I didn’t get.  Most of the funniest ones involve Clinton ostensibly responding with a thumping, sarcastic putdown.  What made the boys that ran the tumblr (that had gotten hugely popular within merely a week) stop?  “Hillz” herself submitted an entry.  Chapeau, Madam (former) Secretary of State.

So ladies, next time you find yourselves in a tight spot – make a joke of it.  Gents, next time a lady says something even mildly funny in your vicinity – have a loud, guffawing laugh at it.  You kind of owe it to her, since she’s probably laughed at much less amusing pronouncements of yours in the past.

Jokes welcome in the comments section...