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[Scoops Novel]

Smaller wars. A big war is unlikely until nukes are obsolete.

[ed boy]

One thing I've recently had a discussion about off the forums is sexist jokes, or what makes a joke sexist. Consider the following joke:

A man was driving his car one day, and he hit a woman. Whose fault is it?
The man's, he shouldn't have been driving in the kitchen.

This is often classified as a sexist joke, with the implication that anybody who find it funny is sexist. I would disagree. The humour comes from absurdity and shock - the humour does not come from the woman being hit by the car, or that it is the man's fault, the humour comes from the implication that the norm is that the woman is confined to the kitchen. The humour relies on the fact that the audience finds that idea strange and unusual.

[Max White]

I laughed. I mean you are right, the implication that all women are always in the kitchen is absurd and something to be laughed at. I also laugh at jokes at the expense of caucasians, males, heterosexuals, programmers, atheists and nerds, all groups I identify with.

If you can't laugh at yourself, you have a problem. This doesn't mean all jokes are in good taste, some of them are downright offensive, but just because a joke is directed at some group that you belong to doesn't make it wrong.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The draft would discourage wars by making them politically unpopular. People will care about and scrutinize the reasons for going to war a lot more then they could possibly be sent to fight, instead of sending off a professional army to do the dirty work for them.

I knew a businessman who was democrat that believed only veterans should be allowed to vote, they'd understand the realities of war enough to know the difference between a just and unjust war and the cost of waging either, but a universal draft does the same thing.

Wars are easy to start and really hard to end. People are way too eager to start them (this is democrats and republicans alike) when they have zero stake in the matter. Not even a tax increase for this last 11 years of war.

So people will look at something like the Syrian war or Rwandan Genocide and instead of thinking "Oh no, we should go in and stop this horrible slaughter!" they'll think more like "Well shit, maybe France will do something, I'm sure as hell not going over there."

Go Rome. All members of the senate had to have served in the army to be eligible to join.

Though that didn't really stop Rome going to war.

[palsch]

A man was driving his car one day, and he hit a woman. Whose fault is it?
The man's, he shouldn't have been driving in the kitchen.

Would this joke be sexist if the person telling it was sexist and genuinely believed a woman's place was in the kitchen? Would it be sexist if the audience it was told to believed that? If so, how are the same words in the mouth of someone else not still sexist?

Hipster sexism doesn't sit well with me. A few significant paragraphs from those links;

“For the media savvy [generation], irony means that you can look as if you are not seduced by the mass media, while being seduced by [it] ... [and] wearing a knowing smirk,” writes Douglas. In this sense, the pleasure of ‘admiring’ someone like Richardson actually comes from “the feeling that you are reading against the grain”.

It’s a catch 22 for women: Could it be that we’ve been putting up with seemingly misogynistic behaviour to prove that we are above it all? Douglas seems to think so. At the heart of “enlightened sexism” is the argument that “women have made plenty of progress because of feminism – indeed full equality has allegedly been achieved – so now it’s okay, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes of girls and women.” After all, argue the sceptics, “these images can’t possibly undermine women’s equality at this late date.”

Attempting to take the sting out of something by couching it in irony is dangerous in its sneakiness and sneaky in its danger. Like claiming that we’re in a post-racial society and therefore your jokes about slavery are uproarious, trashing women because you know better and still find it funny only reinforces the sexism inherent in your “humor.” And worse, as smith points out, hipster sexism “sends a clear message to women in hipster and young liberal communities: Embrace the hipster sexism or find yourself on the outside of the conversation. Don’t challenge sexism when it’s done 'right,' and be aware that if you’re sexually assaulted, emotionally harmed or exploited by a beloved of the crowd, you’ll be pilloried for reporting it and challenging it, not supported.”

I hate to be the feminist killjoy the hipster sexists have been LOLing about (okay, not really) but saying sexism is "no big deal" actually IS a big deal. It’s a big deal because we don’t live in a post-feminist society, and this brand of humor does garden-variety, non–fixie-riding misogynists' work for them, putting women down and keeping them down. It creates an environment where it’s okay to dismiss someone as a slut and to blow her off if she challenges you. Where you can joke that a woman should make you a sandwich knowing that she'll "get" the joke, but really, underneath it all you kind of do think women should have to make your sandwiches. Where women, regardless of the cut of their jeans, don't feel safe because they probably aren't.

Hipsterism, or if you hate the term, "irony" culture, is tricky because it mocks earnestness—and it takes earnestness to call out this bullshit. Checking people on their hipster sexism is designed to be embarrassing, because if these people—the ones shopping at American Apparel and referring to their girlfriends as their bitches (but in a HILARIOUS way)—are too cool to care, what does that make you? A FEMINIST KILLJOY. But it’s okay, embrace it! Non-ironically!

[DJ]

Having no sense of humour is a terrible affliction. I can't imagine how bleak the world must look to these people, and how they keep themselves away from suicide. Me personally, I joke about things like ethnic cleansing, mine fields, ethnic discrimination, government corruption etc. *because* they're very much real in my world, and laughter is the only shield that's keeping them from hacking my psyche apart.

[Scoops Novel]

Unfortunately many people are less pessimistic, DJ. There are some jokes you have to earn, i think.

[Vector]

Eh.  For me, it's the very striking difference of people making jokes about you, vs. you making jokes about you.

I, for example, sometimes make jokes about getting back in the kitchen after I've made a long string of technical arguments.  But the jokes I hear in the computer science labs--sometimes literally hours of rape jokes strung together--are obviously not funny, because if you're laughing that loudly at the exact same joke over and over again ("haha, I raped it" or "haha, it raped me," with absolutely nothing new happening in the world--just talking about schoolwork) and repeating your cohort's words like they're the funniest thing ever, I've got to submit that the person in question thinks that the idea of rape in and of itself is hilarious.

Also, getting asked by random dudely strangers if I was as raped by the math problem set as they were that week.  Yuck.

[Pnx]

Also, getting asked by random dudely strangers if I was as raped by the math problem set as they were that week.  Yuck.

That sounds like it'd make for the most bizarre and horrific pornographic movie ever.

[Hár]

Rape is not about women. It also happens to men. Since you have identified the speakers as male, and one example was "it raped me" where "me" is the speaker, then you surely know that the rape being tossed about is not specifically that of a female. You are trying to claim a gender-based ownership of a grievance in a rather... sexist way.

Also, people who make jokes about their protected status should be radioactive. It's a form of power. "Here's this thing I can joke about, but don't dare engage with me by also joking about it." It rarely ends well for those around them that lower their social defenses.

In your case, *long string of technical jargon* followed by kitchen joke is a steely-eyed glare that your opinion is proof that women are smart, and they disagree at their peril.

[Moghjubar]

One thing I've recently had a discussion about off the forums is sexist jokes, or what makes a joke sexist. Consider the following joke:

A man was driving his car one day, and he hit a woman. Whose fault is it?
The man's, he shouldn't have been driving in the kitchen.

This is often classified as a sexist joke, with the implication that anybody who find it funny is sexist. I would disagree. The humour comes from absurdity and shock - the humour does not come from the woman being hit by the car, or that it is the man's fault, the humour comes from the implication that the norm is that the woman is confined to the kitchen. The humour relies on the fact that the audience finds that idea strange and unusual.

Definitely sexist. Not all men are so stupid that they try to drive their cars thru kitchens!

[ed boy]

Would this joke be sexist if the person telling it was sexist and genuinely believed a woman's place was in the kitchen? Would it be sexist if the audience it was told to believed that? If so, how are the same words in the mouth of someone else not still sexist?

Well, what does it mean for a joke to be sexist? Normally saying that a remark is sexist (e.g. "women are only good for cooking and breeding") implies that it is a remark that would only be made by someone who is sexist. The problem with jokes is that something that presents women in a bad light can easily be propagated among non-sexists as shock humour (the idea that this is true is shocking), and something that presents women in a good light can similarly be propagated among non-sexists as shock humour (the idea that we would find this funny is shocking).

Concerning the links provided, we have a bit of a dilemma. The more you emphasize issues like female oppression, the more potential for shock humour you give those issues. I personally have no idea how you can separate being serious about something from shock humour potential.

But the jokes I hear in the computer science labs--sometimes literally hours of rape jokes strung together--are obviously not funny, because if you're laughing that loudly at the exact same joke over and over again and repeating your cohort's words like they're the funniest thing ever, I've got to submit that the person in question thinks that the idea of rape in and of itself is hilarious.

That's shock humour. It's not (necessarily) that rape is considered funny, it's more that something in an inappropriate place (in this case, rape in a situation completely unrelated to rape) is funny. As rape is so strongly reinforced as a bad thing in society nowadays, it therefore holds an awful lot of shock humour potential.

Also, getting asked by random dudely strangers if I was as raped by the math problem set as they were that week.  Yuck.

That sounds like it'd make for the most bizarre and horrific pornographic movie ever.

There would be lots of room for puns about how mathematicians multiply.

[Vector]

I never said I was popular or likable, or that I even tried to be, Hár.  I wouldn't be "talking technical" in the first place if I wanted to be either of those things.  I'll also add that that joke was in private with an ex-boyfriend after I'd been upset by one of his friends saying I "didn't count as a woman" because I could do math.  So the context was more "LOL, I still count as female because I can make you sammiches" than anything else.

I also never said that I was claiming rape jokes for my gender (I have not been raped.  I do not make rape jokes).  It is indeed possible that those two survivors were bravely saying "Yeah, I fucking raped the shit out of that exam last week!" "Yeah, fucking raped the shit out of it!  Hahahahaha" in public at the top of their lungs.  Except for the fact that most survivors understand the idea of not triggering other people's PTSD and would keep that sort of behavior for private locations.

That's shock humour. It's not (necessarily) that rape is considered funny, it's more that something in an inappropriate place (in this case, rape in a situation completely unrelated to rape) is funny. As rape is so strongly reinforced as a bad thing in society nowadays, it therefore holds an awful lot of shock humour potential.

In my experience, the folks I've met who go into this sort of humor and have spent any appreciable amount of time with later admit to sexual assault.  And laugh about it.  Admittedly, large law of small numbers and all that, but the cavernous lack of empathy they're showing seems like something to pay attention to.

[Pnx]

Also, getting asked by random dudely strangers if I was as raped by the math problem set as they were that week.  Yuck.

That sounds like it'd make for the most bizarre and horrific pornographic movie ever.

Ok, I just walked off, did some other stuff, came back and decided I should probably apologise for this comment, it was probably not the most appropriate place to let that thought wander it's way out my mouth.

Anyway, going back on topic... I often hear people use "rape" in a hyperbolic context. Like in games or something they might say something like "he's raping that base". This is not necessarily meant to be funny, it's usually used in the same kind of way "gay" gets used by people.

And it sort of raises an interesting point, because there are a lot more people who make similar comments using "slave", like "I am a slave to <blank>". Which seems to be ok with most people. Which is probably because most of us have not had experiences with 19th century chattel slavery.

There's a pertinent point in here somewhere, but I think I'm having trouble finding it.

[ed boy]

That's shock humour. It's not (necessarily) that rape is considered funny, it's more that something in an inappropriate place (in this case, rape in a situation completely unrelated to rape) is funny. As rape is so strongly reinforced as a bad thing in society nowadays, it therefore holds an awful lot of shock humour potential.

In my experience, the folks I've met who go into this sort of humor and have spent any appreciable amount of time with later admit to sexual assault.  And laugh about it.  Admittedly, large law of small numbers and all that, but the cavernous lack of empathy they're showing seems like something to pay attention to.

That's awful. Do they consider it sexual assault? Also, what country are you in?