April 17, 2011

Bullying

IHM again managed to touch a nerve with this post. The post is about this image she received via forward email:

enough

“Enough is Enough ! I’ve had enough of this! Now, just shut your damn mouth!”

Statutory warning : DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME.

A sexist joke. And as usual, it shows how a privileged section of society (namely men) makes jokes like these and think its funny. If someone from the unprivileged section object to it (namely women), they tell us that we shouldn't take "jokes" too seriously? Not read too much into it. It doesn't matter to them as the joke is not at them. Its on us. And for some reason, its always the unprivileged that are butt of such jokes.

For example, this picture. Let's reverse this and say its a female sparrow shutting the male sparrow. Do you think the joke would be on the husband or the bossy wife? Honestly, when have you seen a joke like this that has a man’s stereotype as its punch line?

Its very easy to laugh at things like these when you are in a privileged roles and undermine the unprivileged even further. Make jokes on them because, I guess, they deserve it perhaps? And if they object, silence them by saying that its just a joke. They need to relax and take it in good spirit. Well then why don't they make jokes about themselves and relax and take it in good spirit? Really? Instead of joking about women for whatever stereotype they were taught, let's joke about men stereotypes? MCPs? Has anyone heard a joke regarding that? Yeah right, they are not funny.

I work in male dominated field. I studied in male dominated field (only girl in my class). I have heard all this so often that it makes me cringe. I have heard it all: “how these jokes prepare me for real world” to “how I shouldn't take life so seriously”. The bottom line being, they all laughed at me from their privileged position and I wasn't even allowed to defend myself.  All because its just a joke! They were laughing at me, and I was supposed to relax and take it easy? This behavior is what they call BULLYING.

Every time someone tells you a sexist joke and tell you to take it in the spirit of joke, that's what they are doing: Bullying you. Telling you that you that you can't defend yourself and have to endure their nonsensical comments about how women are or supposed to be, is bullying. Whether or not they realize it (and trust me, most of them do realize and relish this. They love watching us squirm and react, and telling us off for being too sensitive. Very innocently, I might add), they are bullying us.

Jokes are best form of bullying, I guess. You can easily silence the victim and not get blamed. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt the victims. It does. Each and every time. We just don’t what to do about it. How to react to a nasty sense of humor? Any ideas?

P.S.: 1. No, I am not saying all men are bullies. Just some of them.

2. Thanks all for your concern. My hand is getting better but hasn’t healed completely.

9 comments:

  1. I agree. Sexist jokes, just like Blond jokes and Sardar jokes are subtle but powerful ways of bullying.

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  2. I think that if the joke was the opposite - a woman shutting up a man, I would laugh in the same way I laugh at this one.

    Do you remember chacha chaudhry comics where his wife constantly threatens to beat him up with her omnipresent roti roller? That was a joke and no one took it seriously. I don't think anyone thought it was a question of bullying.

    Real bullying does indeed take place at home. From both the man and the woman. And it's stressful to always look for causes in things. It's a question of moderation. I choose not to read anything other than a joke into this picture. And if it was a man being shut up I would laugh in the same way.

    It all depends on the intentions - I feel we're all to eager read sinister motives into everything.

    And yes - I laugh at blonde and sardar jokes too. But I don't for a moment think there's any truth in them. When dealing with a blonde or sardar in real life, I have NEVER looked at them through the prism of jokes. Most regular people don't.

    If someone is indeed affected by jokes like that and thinks there's some truth to it, then there's a problem with them and not with the jokes per se.

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  3. @ IHM: I agree!

    @ Bhagwad: Yeah, because again joke is not on poor husband but bossy wife. You see, the person you sympathize with is not the person you are making joke of. If husband had "enough" of talking from wife and tells her off (like this picture), people are supposed to sympathize with husband. If the wife is dominant and tells her husband to shut up, again you sympathize with husband. You see, in the joke wife won't or rather can't get irritated of husband's blabbering. She has to be the bossy type to make that joke work. The joke is NEVER on the man.

    As for YOU laughing at all these jokes, well are you a sardar or a blonde or a woman? If not, then how can you be so sure that people you are joking about are not getting offended. Of course, YOU are not getting offended. You belong to a privileged class and hence you don't understand how it is to be discriminated all the time in all walks of life and then these jokes are thrown at you like your self-esteem doesn't matter. Its okay to joke about how girls behave (or rather supposed to be behave according to these stereotypes).

    Try listening to these jokes when the companies refuse to interview you because "they are not interested in woman employees" even before looking at your credentials.

    I haven't met a sardar or a woman who doesn't get offended by these jokes. They deal with this type of Bullying in different ways. Again, that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt them.

    Another problem that I have with these jokes are that I can't see the funny part. What's so funny about this picture? Really? A male bullying a female is getting portrayed while yelling: "Enough is enough! I have had enough of this! Now, just shut your damn mouth!": What exactly do you find funny in this statement? Please explain to me how is this funny? Its a valid threat. What is funny about a threat?

    This actually reminds me of the jokes targeting the LGBT community. None of them are funny. People laugh simply because someone mentioned the word "Gay" in the conversation.

    Belittling a community is never funny. I don't call it sense of humor, they are cheap shots. Humor is a difficult art. Not everyone can do it. So they settle for cheap shots like these.

    Sorry for the aggressive tone but I have had enough of these jokes. They are not appropriate.
    If I don't stand up against them, who will? Certainly not the men who find things like these funny.

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  4. I disagree. Very often it's not the bossy wife who's the butt of the joke but the guy. You might not see it that way, but I'm afraid you're being a teensy bit paranoid.

    I'm hardly what you would call an MCP. I don't think I need to prove that. But I draw a line between taking something too seriously when no offence was intended.

    Everyone is made fun of at some point or the other. Unless it crosses a certain limit, there's no problem. I've been made fun of for being ignorant of realities (when I wrote about chetan bhagat's book),of being a nerd, of being too complacent...and I always know when to draw the line. But there IS a line. I'm not so insecure as to look at everything as a personal assault on me.

    Clearly we have different perspectives on this matter, and I doubt you're going to change yours or me mine - and that's partly because of your aggressive tone towards someone who is really very sympathetic to women's rights when it really matters.

    Know when to pick your battles. You can't fight everything all the time - nor is there any need to. And unlike you, I've met many sardars who wouldn't mind sardar jokes.

    Only those sardars would mind who are naive enough to think that others take the jokes seriously. And that's a problem with those individuals.

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  5. It's probably not as much about 'who's being made fun of' as how the jokes actually hurt the sentiments of a particular section of society.

    And, when someone actually seems to enjoy the joke which could hurt others, it's not longer a funny matter.

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  6. Richa, hope you are well. Haven't seen you blogging in a long time...missing your posts. Take care!

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  7. @PB: Thanks for checking in PB! I have been missing blogging too. Have quite a few new things to write about but I am just having some crazy schedules at the moment. should be back to normal by end of this month. Hope I don't loose all my readers by then :)

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  8. I think that if the joke was the opposite - a woman shutting up a man, I would laugh in the same way I laugh at this one.

    Do you remember chacha chaudhry comics where his wife constantly threatens to beat him up with her omnipresent roti roller? That was a joke and no one took it seriously. I don't think anyone thought it was a question of bullying.

    Real bullying does indeed take place at home. From both the man and the woman. And it's stressful to always look for causes in things. It's a question of moderation. I choose not to read anything other than a joke into this picture. And if it was a man being shut up I would laugh in the same way.

    It all depends on the intentions - I feel we're all to eager read sinister motives into everything.

    And yes - I laugh at blonde and sardar jokes too. But I don't for a moment think there's any truth in them. When dealing with a blonde or sardar in real life, I have NEVER looked at them through the prism of jokes. Most regular people don't.

    If someone is indeed affected by jokes like that and thinks there's some truth to it, then there's a problem with them and not with the jokes per se.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I agree. Sexist jokes, just like Blond jokes and Sardar jokes are subtle but powerful ways of bullying.

    ReplyDelete