Conversational Humor in Relation to Gender

Conversational Humor in Relation to Gender

Introduction

Humor is all around us, whether we know it or not; although we do not find something humorous, another person may. A big barrier that keeps us from perceiving the same things to be funny is our gender. Something could be extremely funny to one person but very offensive to another. Humor is supposed to be enjoyable but why is it so controversial between genders? Conversational humor is a topic that affects us in our daily lives. Men and women communicate with humor in a different manner than they do when they converse with their own sex because their intention for using humor is different. This paper will explore the background of controversial humor in relation to gender, the patterns of communicating humor between women and women, men and men and women and men.

Background information

Many have tried to explain the different ways in which men and women communicate humor. It is an established fact that men and women enjoy different kinds of humor and as a result of their interests they express humor differently. Men generally tend to appreciate sexual and aggressive humor whereas most women enjoy humor through story telling (Crawford 1995). A theorist Sigmund Freud tried to provide an explanation as to why many men are so aggressive and sexual in their humor. He believes that women tease men. Women arouse men's sexual urges and then leave it alone and that frustrates him. A way for men to take revenge on women is use a lot of aggressive and sexual humor towards them (Kotthoff 2003).

There is a big category of jokes aimed towards women. Mother in laws, dumb blonds, prostitutes and women driver jokes have no corresponding male-targeted jokes. Women are mostly targeted for their intensions and nature. The easiest way for men to make statements of this kind is if women are the butt of the jokes (Crawford 1995). A generalization that has been established by poor studies is that women have no sense of humor. The test were given in a questionnaire formatThe test was given in a way that was Men were the ones that appreciated this kind of humor more. As a result women said to have less sense of humor than men.

Conversational Humor

Women and Women

When women converse in a humorous manner with other women it is usually done through a friendly approach. Their main reason for using a humorous style of speech while communicating is to build, mend and establish a sense of support with one another. Women's style of conversational humor is collaborative, mutual and even educational. A researcher, Mercille Jenkins studied six groups of women and all groups communicated their humor in similar ways. In one of Jenkins' studies, she used participant observation to examine a group of mothers belonging to a local church and their conversational humor. She observed that they all had a kind of intimate bond from sharing their humorous past experiences. They did this in a manner of collaboration, with many speakers instead of one and often joked at their own expense. (Kotthoff 2003). There was no hierarchical tension or competition.

Most women do not feel hierarchical or competitive tension when they are communicating humor with other women because their intensions for using humor tends to be very sociable. Most of them do not use it to feel superior or at another person's expense, but rather to find commonalities and to create a bond. Because they are the same sex, they generally would not raise any sort of humor that degrades their own sex, leaving less room for tension. Franca Pizzini conducted a study in 1991 by observing conversations that took place in five hospitals and found that most of the higher positions were men's (doctors), while the lower positions (nurses) were dominated by women. The common trait among these five hospitals was that nurses (women) joked around while with one another, however when doctors (men) were present, they failed to do so (Crawford 1995). In general, men hold higher positions than women. Women This supports the idea that women feel more comfortable with one another.

In another sense, the comfort ability level to express humor is also formulated among women because it is a way to "perform tiny act(s) of revenge on the men who have power over their lives" (Crawford 1995). Folklorist Rayna Green studied a group of women from her social network and their sense of humor around each other. While women gathered together their humor consisted mainly of jokes and stories about failures of men, their sexual inadequacies and men's boasts. These conversations usually occurred at family gatherings while the men were outdoors and women and children were inside. They evoked laughter among the group by talking positively about themselves, sharing sexual humor with educational value children can pick up (Crawford 1995). Green also points out that the women do all this in front of children, the next generation. The main role humor that humor functioned as, in this female group, was to express their suppression and also to create a new image of women to the next generation.

Men and Men

The way men communicate humor with other men is quite different from the way women communicate with other women. Men's main intentions are usually to build a positive self-image, create hierarchy and to find a target to aim their jokes at. Men's main interest is in sexual and degrading humor. Sociologist Cary Fine studied male youths in sports clubs and their conversational humor around each other. As a result he found that many of the jokes made by the boys on the higher end of the hierarchy level (the popular boys) were aimed towards those on the lower end (Dawn 2001). Joking at the expense of someone else was a way for them to obtain and sustain their positive self-image.

The group conversations contained a lot of sexual jokes