Wife Jokes & a Sense of Tumour
why your jokes suck
I am not the first person to write about this and I hope that I will not be the last.
But it’s just a joke!
Regret to inform you that it feels like a knife jab slow-twisting in the centre of my rib cage. My imagination says that the centre of my ribcage would hurt the most and since my strength lies in my hyperbolic tendencies, here we are.
Not only am I disallowed to wince, I am obligated to laugh.
But I won't laugh.
I will do the opposite. I will cry. I will bawl and I will make myself miserable and hope that it would make you miserable too.
But it doesn’t because if you cared you wouldn’t be cracking that joke but I let it go.
And I am running the risk of being an overly sensitive man hater, but what can I say, I will run this risk till the risk runs me over.
It is no secret that people conceal their true feelings behind poorly crafted jokes cracked in front of close friends who share the same beliefs and provide a safe space to this behaviour. I hope everyone finds their tribe but I hope people who laugh at wife jokes don’t, I also hope they don't find a wife.
Everytime I get bothered by something, I like to intellectualize it.
Intellectualising has two benefits:
- I feel people care about this subject and I am not crazy
- It helps create strong rebuttal for next time i pick this argument with someone, because arguments picking is my hobby!
As I read about this type of humour and some very blase wife jokes, I came across the term, Disparagement humor:
Disparagement Humour is “any attempt to amuse through the denigration of a social group or its representatives.”
It is paradoxical in nature; it conveys two conflicting messages simultaneously. Firstly, it gives out a prejudiced, explicit message targeting a group, and secondly, it implicitly conveys that “it doesn’t count as hostility or prejudice because it was told as a joke.”
But it is no laughing matter, really. Disparagement humor, when partaken in consistently, leads to grim consequences — mostly discrimination against the group that is ridiculed, although another study has found that among men with pre-existing sexist attitudes, hearing sexist jokes increased their self-reported inclination to assault a woman, as compared to when they heard non-sexist jokes; the finding led researchers to conclude “sexist humor, particularly when initiated by women, fosters a social context of tolerance of sexism among men high in hostile sexism.”
Dr. Hansal Bhachech, psychiatrist and author, says, “There are three types of people who circulate such jokes in social media circuits; the first forwards everything he receives, the second is someone who is frustrated in his or her own relationship and this is a way they have adopted to ventilate inner aggression. The third type of people are really sexist; they get sadistic pleasure in such activities, particularly ridiculing women. Although we find such jokes routine, it’s actually an act of covert aggression or ridiculing. More males are involved in such activities as compared to females. In fact, in most of the cases, females neither enjoy nor forward such things.”
If you’re a man reading this, these jokes have the potential to downgrade your relationship to the point of abuse. And I can guarantee that there are plenty of other subjects to laugh about.
Can’t find them?
Maybe because what you have isn't a sense of humour but an immense tumour; right in the centre of your brain.
Also wanted to let the girls know that your foremothers turn in their graves every time you let a man take a jibe at you. So, if not for me, for them, tell that bozo his punchline about women and kitchen and women and tea cup emoji is not landing.
