Why women aren't funny ... really ?

Having just read Christopher Hutchens article in vanity fair about the apparent fact that women aren't funny I'd like to make few small and humble remarks on the matter.

First of all the medical study quoted by the author only proves that women expect no reward during a joke. It does not mean we are slower in catching on.( wink wink nudge nudge)

It means women process humor differently.

Trying to add an evolutionary cause to humor as a solely male trait is for me a bit of a stretch. That humor is a part of seduction I will not deny. But humor is so much more. It means cheering up a friend, handling an akward situation,in situation of fear and sorrow we laugh to not cry,we tell jokes to put people at ease. Humor is some sort of social coagulant, people with a similar sense of humor will flock together. In short limiting humor to an element of courtship is selling life itself terribly short.

There may be a difference in what men and women find more amusing,but is that so important?

Does it make a women any less funny, that we in general tell a diferent type of joke.

If it is even the case. I find Hutchins example that a pregnant woman doesn't tell dead baby jokes a bit ridiculous. What is found funny is not only culturally determined but changes throughout time. Half of the jokes being told today would be utterly unacceptable even just a few decades ago.
And the statement that women who are funny have to play by men's rules. If we follow that logic doesn't that apply to absolutely everything except childbirth.
The idear that society is so dominated by males while women 'choose their chains' as I heard a feminist put it and rule from the shadows is by my book a rather backward statement.
I find that worldview depressing and I choose not to believe in it. Therefore I do not behave as if women are inately manipulative and men dominating. I might be delusional but I have not been presented with the slightest shred of proof that 'women aren't funny'.
A very wise man once said ' life is a farce, if you can't laugh at it, what's the point ?'
And if all the world is a stage and we play our part in social interaction, doesn't it stand to reason that the 50% with ovaries can crack a joke?


In short , humor is a part of most social interaction. It comes in so many types and forms that it is impossible to truely and objectivly determine what is funny and what isn't.
Something can become funny in a different time and setting.
Humor is a social glue that brings people together. However dry and desperate you may be it is not limited to courtship.
Women are not out to dominate men at all time, any social interaction is a game of rank and hierarchy. There are roles we play as humans, the clown is one of those. I do not believe these roles are as gender determined as some people claim.
'Lest the generations fail' said Kipling, continuation of the species is as much sewn together with laughter and knowledge than it is with the purely reproductive side of the story.

God rest ye merry gentlemen.

It's almost Christmas, so much has become clear to me through the ridiculous amount of snow piled in front of my door and the fact that my entire family is foraging for presents.
The spontaneous urge to begin to sing the carols I was taught as a child has a tendancy to surface around this time of year.
The problem with the latter being that most of them have a religious character.
Something I have no real issue with, would it not be that it strikes me as profoundly ridiculous that during a specific season a habitual atheïst should burst into religious song.
Simply because it is part of the typical seasonal festivities.
You may argue that there is no real need to resort to religious song and that other more modern and ridiculous carols are available. I'm thinking along the lines of ' All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" and " rudolf the rednosed reindeer" etc.
But to throw in a very feedle argument in my defence, the religious ones are so pretty.
"God rest ye merry gentelemen" for instance is a nice piece of music. Plus I can't possibly be the only one to recodgnize some sort of pun in the first line.
The placement of a comma makes quite a lot of difference in the meaning.
God rest ye merry, gentelemen -> God brings peace and happyness to you , gentelemen.
God rest ye merry gentelemen -> God brings rest to you happy people.
That is how it sounds to me , meaning wise. The latter, the version being sung today, doesn not contain a comma. Which makes it almost natural to believe we are talking about 'merry gentelemen'. The phrase 'merry gentelemen' brings to mind men in suits, preferably looking like they just walked out of a Dickens story, all looking slightly redfaced from the copious amounts of alcohol almost religiously consumed at Christmas parties. The mental imagery of these gentelemen slouched in loungechairs by the fire followed by ' remember christ our saviour was born on Christmas day'. Reminds me of a E.A Poe story about an apparition a drunken man had. He believed to have seen an angel that looked vaguely like a brandy bottle and other household appliances available at the time.
It may also be a sign of a cynical mind that terms used to envoke happyness automatically remind me of drunkenness. At least I had a good laugh about it.