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Posts authored by Gretchen

Gendering the jokes

Gendering the jokes published on No Comments on Gendering the jokes
Judy Gold: one funny lesbian

Psychologist Jesse Bering’s latest “Bering in Mind” column at Scientific American addresses lesbians in comedy– why are there so many?  Or rather, why are there so many in comparison with straight female and gay male comics?  Obviously the vast majority of comics who do stand-up, whom Bering refers to as “heavy-hitters in the world of comedy,” are straight males.  Is there something that Louis CK, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Doug Stanhope have in common with Sandra Bernhard, Judy Gold, Wanda Sykes, and Margaret Cho that draws both groups to the clubs?

Bering challenges us to name a single gay male stand-up comic without consulting Google.  I came up with Andy Dick, but stopped there.  I know there are more, but on the spot couldn’t seem to muster any other names.  Eddie Izzard definitely bends gender expectations with his transvestitism, but gay he is not.  Bering suggests a reason for the disparity:

Still, one of the hottest findings to emerge from contemporary humor research is the fact that while both men and women say that they value a “good sense of humor” in potential partners, the two sexes mean vastly different things by this. Men prefer women who find them funny (“humor receptivity”), not funny women per se (“humor production”). Women display the opposite trend in their dating preferences. These were the basic findings reported in a 2006 issue of Evolution and Human Behavior by psychologist Eric Bressler and his colleagues. The authors interpret these data, and similar data, by drawing from psychologist  Geoffrey Miller’s ideas about the evolution of humor. Miller has argued that ancestral males’ ability to produce entertaining humor demanded a set of heritable cognitive skills, including intelligence and creativity, and thus was a hard-to-fake signal of genetic quality. Due to the sexes’ differential investment in reproduction (just at a coital level alone, about 90 seconds versus 9 months), women would have evolved to be more receptive to signs of genetic quality than males. Men, meanwhile, would have been on the lookout for women who responded positively to their humor. 

I’d heard of this theory before, and find it entirely plausible but also a bit depressing.  Anecdotal evidence from my personal life shows that plenty of straight men are willing to at least claim that they are attracted to funny women– not just women “with a good sense of humor”– but it’s entirely possible that they did so just thinking that that’s what I wanted to hear.  I definitely find myself attracted to men who are funny, and like to think that they feel the same sort of attraction.  But maybe not.  Or at least, maybe not to the same degree.  Straight women certainly aren’t immune to feeling a rush of pleasure when someone appreciates their displays of intelligence and creativity in the form of humor; we just don’t seem to be nearly as keen to step up onto a stage in front of strangers to experience it.  Julia Sweeney is a notable exception– when talking about her research into how the mind works in Letting Go of God, she says to the audience “I found that all of our brains are on drugs all of the time. We give ourselves hits: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and vasopressin. The next time all of you laugh, I’ll get a hit of adrenaline through my veins, and if you don’t when I expect you to, I’ll get cortisol instead and I’ll feel anxious. I always thought I was a person in my family who escaped addictions, but now I realize that I am up here on this stage right now partly because I am an addict.”

Why does Sweeney seem to be often in the company of lesbians in that regard?  Bering suggests that it has to do with hormones:

Researchers who study homosexuality have discovered that the brains of many lesbians were over-exposed to male hormones during prenatal development, influencing not only their adult sexual orientation, but also masculinizing other behavioral and cognitive traits in which there exist innate sex differences. This is not true of all lesbians, but it is especially true for those who exhibit male-typed profiles. So it is not implausible that some lesbians’ courtship strategies would largely mimic opposite-sex-typed patterns, including a differentiated capacity for humor production that attracts female attention. This would not be a conscious strategy, it must be emphasized, and indeed this is what many critics of evolutionary psychology repeatedly fail to realize. So, for heaven’s sake, don’t mistake this as me saying that lesbian comics go on stage just to score chicks. Gene replication is simply a mechanistic means to an end; if it works, it works. Many evolutionary psychologists, including Miller, believe that our minds are often just epiphenomenal interpreters.

The confusion Bering is addressing here has to do with proximate versus ultimate concerns, and it’s a common one for both the incredulous people who hear EP theories and don’t find them to line up with their own introspective reasons for doing what they do, and often evolutionary psychologists themselves.  A proximate reason is what’s going on in your head– “I do comedy because I enjoy it.  I love making people laugh.”  An ultimate reason is what your genes want you to do– “I do comedy because it’ll get me laid, enabling me to further my lineage.”  These reasons are not mutually exclusive, though that doesn’t mean that the explanation of ultimate concern is necessarily true. Our genes and hormones might not give a damn about whether we get up on stage to make people laugh or not, regardless of who we are.  But it’s possible that they do, and that idea doesn’t need to be threatening.  The conflict comes in when people differ as to what extent our minds are epiphenomenal interpreters– the means by which we manufacture after-the-fact motivations for our actions– as opposed to being directly causal.

For (a possible) example, an early comment on Bering’s article:

This seems so obviously cultural to me. It’s not considered ‘feminine’ or ‘lady-like’ to talk bluntly and sometimes vulgarly the way comedians must to elicit laughs. Lesbians have already been questioning and contradicting social norms of femininity, making it FAR easier for them to fit into the comedy domain.

I don’t want to claim that this person thinks that by appealing to social constructivism, he/she can reclaim a degree of agency stolen by evolutionary (read: genetic/hormonal) explanations.  That might not be the case.  But if he/she is, he/she is barking up the wrong tree– cultural forces don’t rescue free will any more than biological ones do.  “My culture made me do it” is as much an abdication of responsibility as “My genes made me do it.”  Aside from that, though, it seems like this explanation is begging the question– why is it not considered “feminine” or “lady-like” to speak in the vulgar ways often used by comics?   Where does that come from?  The goal posts have just been moved back a few yards.  Eventually, we still have to answer the question of where these apparently very influential gender norms originated.

The psychology of comedy is endlessly fascinating to me.  I know the common understanding is that analysis ruins a joke, but I’m prepared to murder a few jokes mercilessly in order to reach a better understanding of what makes people laugh, why it does, and– most interestingly to me– why the things that make people laugh so often become a moral issue.  More on that later, hopefully.  In the meantime, have a good weekend, and listen to whatever makes you laugh.

Rock Beyond Belief

Rock Beyond Belief published on No Comments on Rock Beyond Belief

A secular-type person?  Going to be anywhere near North Carolina on April 2nd?  Then consider attending:

From a statement by the Military Associations of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) on how the event originated:

On Sep 25th, 2010, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association held a concert on the Fort Bragg Main Parade Field. Attendance was projected by BGEA to be 10,000, but photos indicate closer to hundreds than thousands. Whatever the size, this event was specifically “evangelical in nature” according to the event site and letters sent to the community by the senior Ft Bragg chaplain. The photos also show that the Golden Knights parachute team performed at the event, which requires special military authorization. An included “Family Fun Event” has balloons and face painting targeted at children and the “God Rocks” children ministry. The prayer call associated with the event calls for soldiers to bring their “battle buddies”. The chaplain enthusiastically encouraged members of the local community to attend. New reports by the Freedom From Religion Foundation show the Army spent at least $50,000 of taxpayer funds on this event. . .On a positive note, the Ft Bragg commander’s letter offered “similar support to comparable events.” The fact is that only evangelical Christians would request an evangelical event, so there will be no request for a ‘comparable event’. MAAF would oppose an military promotion of religion or nontheist beliefs like atheism or Secular Humanism just as it does Christianity. That having been said, nontheists at Ft Bragg may request the opportunity to hold an event for themselves with no atheist “evangelical” purpose. The new Ft Bragg military group Military Atheists & Secular Humanists is planning an event titled Rock Beyond Belief. While any event held should not be a “me too” copy of this evangelical concert, nontheists do come together and local nontheists may accept the commanding general’s offer to host a nontheistic, non-evangelical event that has none of the Constitutional complications of Rock the Fort.

As noted on the poster, the event will be free for both military members and civilians.

Deconstruction of a boogeyman

Deconstruction of a boogeyman published on 1 Comment on Deconstruction of a boogeyman

My long-time friend Ed Brayton blogs over at Dispatches From the Culture Wars about various topics related to the “interface of religion, science, law, and culture.”  A stalwart defender of civil liberties, he has come under fire from an indeterminate number of trollish posters accusing him of being insufficiently anti-Sharia and anti-Muslim for not being willing to proclaim that Muslims are all evil people who are taking over America to implement their religious law.  So he posted a response today to clear the air, and it’s definitely worth reading in full, though rather frustrating that some of the points in it needed to be made in the first place.  Two in particular stand out for me:

1.  You don’t prevent a people from becoming oppressive by oppressing them.  Fear of Muslims and Sharia law is not a legitimate reason to treat Muslims as though they are lacking in the human rights we recognize in everyone else.  Even if all 1% of Americans who identify as Muslim were trying to take over the country and make it an Islamic theocracy, that wouldn’t justify denying them the right to religious expression.  We don’t deny the rights of Christian Reconstructionists who are trying to implement a Christian theocracy.  We don’t forbid them from building churches. Neither can we do so for Muslims.  The freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment apply to us all.  The freedom of expression clause provides for us to all practice our faith (or lack thereof) as we see fit in compliance with the law, and the establishment clause precludes the implementation of Sharia to govern non-Muslims.  See how easy that is?  If you want freedom, you have to permit others to have it too.

2.  You can’t take the religious text of a group of believers and presume to dictate to them or anyone else what they believe in or about that text.  Ed’s dissenters have been finding the most barbaric passages they can in the Qur’an and the Hadith and then citing them as though all Muslims believe them to be inerrant, cling to them, and think they should become law. Why? Most believers don’t treat their religious texts that way, even the ones who say they do.  You can disagree with someone’s interpretation of a certain passage, but you can’t determine for them how they interpret it.  If a Muslim man says that he doesn’t think it’s permissible to beat a woman, then he doesn’t think it’s permissible to beat a woman.  End of story.  Muslims may argue amongst themselves until the cows come home about what interpretations should be held by a “true” Muslim, but the rest of us don’t get to choose which ones they believe.*

I don’t see any conflict between loving liberty and allowing Muslims to have it.  That’s why I want them to have it.  People who love liberty only for themselves and those like them do not love it at all.  What they love is actually called “power.”

*I see this happen all of the time in arguments between atheists and Christians, by the way, and it drives me up the wall.  “The Bible says this, therefore you believe this.”  If the Christian responds with either “No I don’t” or “I do, but that’s not how I interpret it,” the response is flatly denied.  How much more of an obvious straw man could you get than outright telling someone, over and against their objections, what they believe in order to refute it?

So, the Anonymous thing was apparently a hoax.

So, the Anonymous thing was apparently a hoax. published on No Comments on So, the Anonymous thing was apparently a hoax.

*Blush*

Guess I can stop defending the free speech rights of scoundrels.  Well, at least these scoundrels.  For now.

It’s…nice to have a diagnosis?

It’s…nice to have a diagnosis? published on No Comments on It’s…nice to have a diagnosis?
Some of these people are really annoyed at you

Apparently I might have Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome.  According to the Wall Street Journal,

Researchers say the concept of “sidewalk rage” is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder,” researchers say. On Facebook, there’s a group called “I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head” that boasts nearly 15,000 members. . .  Some researchers are even studying the dynamics that trigger such rage and why some people remain calm in hopes of improving anger-management treatments and gaining insights into how emotions influence decision making, attention and self control.”We’re trying to understand what makes people angry, what that experience is like,” says Jerry Deffenbacher, a professor at Colorado State University who studies anger and road rage. “For those for whom anger is a personal problem, we’re trying to develop and evaluate ways of helping them.” Signs of a sidewalk rager include muttering or bumping into others; uncaringly hogging a walking lane; and acting in a hostile manner by staring, giving a “mean face” or approaching others too closely, says Leon James, a psychology professor at the University of Hawaii who studies pedestrian and driver aggression.

I’m guilty on the muttering and staring thing.   Maybe even the “mean face” thing occasionally, though it’s hard to tell, being always behind the face.  But let me explain, please– for me, it’s not simply about people being slow.  There are good reasons to be slow on a sidewalk, and if you get angry at someone for being old or disabled then you’re…not a pleasant person.

My problem is with those who exhibit the kind of lack of awareness as to think that stopping suddenly in a crowded entrance to a store, train station, etc. to root around in one’s purse is a good idea.  People who play the “I’m not moving” game when confronted with someone moving in the opposite direction while carrying something obviously heavy.  People who fail to comprehend that before they can board a bus, train, tram, or elevator, they’re going to need to step back and let others disembark.  In general, people who either don’t appear to have the first notion of how to conduct themselves considerately in a situation where masses of people are trying to get from one place to another, or who just don’t care.  Airports are a big one– yes, maybe you still have two hours left on your layover, but that’s no reason to make life difficult for someone who was given thirty minutes to traverse an entire airport in order to reach their next connection (not an exaggeration– this has happened to me multiple times).  Try browsing the shops by doing the leisurely “I’ve got half a day to kill” saunter directly in front of them, instead of smack in the middle of the hall where sweaty people are frantically trying to break the space-time continuum to get to their flights.

Any narrow lane of passage through which people other than you are trying to travel?  Not the best place to stop and check if someone has texted you.  A crowded sidewalk?  Might not be optimal to decide with your friends that you should walk five-abreast at approximately one mile an hour.  I realize that children are walking random opportunities for catastrophe, but do you really need to halt everything to scream at the young’un at the top of an escalator or the end of a moving walkway?

No, I do not bump people or step on toes.  I don’t intentionally try to impede them in retaliation– what good would that do?  I just sigh and, if my patience has been completely depleted, occasionally say things under my breath that I’m both unable to resist saying and simultaneously hope that no one hears.  Most of the time.

I’m not a bad person…am I?  If so, blame the syndrome.

Some links for Sunday

Some links for Sunday published on No Comments on Some links for Sunday
  • Westboro Baptist’s reply to Anonymous is predictably childish.  (That link goes to the PDF, but you can see a jpeg version here.)  Short version: “Bring it!”
  • Speaking of shutting down web sites, the Department of Homeland Security shuttered nearly 84,000 of them last weekend on suspicion of child porn.  People attempting to access those sites were greeted for up to six days with a banner noting the accusation but no further details.  Charges were ultimately brought against 10 of the sites.   Operators of many of the other sites are not pleased.     
  • Eight years after a Savage Love reader proposed “a frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex” as a definition for Rick Santorum’s surname in response to his rabidly anti-homosexual views, the former Pennsylvania senator is finding that he now has a “Google problem.”  
  • More things Bill O’Reilly can’t explain.  
  • Going to be anywhere near Pasadena, CA at the end of June?  If so, go to the Science Symposium featuring Michael Shermer, Bill Nye, Brian Dalton (Mr. Deity) and James Randi.  I’ll envy you from afar.
  • Susan over at Farmgirlfare has instituted a Daily Donkey feature, spreading joy and cuteness for those of us not lucky enough to have farms of our own.  A sample:

Dan and Daphne (she only looks dead) 1/9/08

Anonymous threatens Westboro Baptist

Anonymous threatens Westboro Baptist published on No Comments on Anonymous threatens Westboro Baptist

“Aggressive proponents of free speech,” my arse.   I would wonder how it’s possible for them to claim that label while simultaneously threatening to shut down a group’s website due to ideological differences with a straight face, but they’re Anonymous– there’s no face to see.

Note: this response is not because of any love lost between me and the WBC.  That’s definitely not the case.  I just fervently believe that trying to silence a group is not the way to go about combating their ideas.

Martin Robbins at The Guardian elaborates:

Anonymous have succeeded in generating yet more publicity for an organization which thrives on attention and frankly, like the BNP in the UK, gets far more media coverage than it really merits or deserves.
Meanwhile, their actions will have little impact on a collection of people who live together, protest at real world events, and use shock value to get mainstream media attention. It is naive to believe that hacking some websites can bring down this sort of group. The best thing anyone can do is ask the media to shut the fuck up about them.
And finally there’s the sheer hypocrisy of it. Anonymous make a big deal about freedom of speech, calling themselves variously “the Voice of Free Speech”, or “aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech.” Which would be great, if they were, but are they?
Well no, compare and contrast with: “the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated […] we will not relent until you cease the conduction & promotion of all your bigoted operations & doctrines.” The self-appointed defenders of free speech want to shut down people’s websites. Bang goes another irony meter.

(Hat tip to Tracy King for the link)

The saddest tattoo

The saddest tattoo published on 4 Comments on The saddest tattoo

Oh, I know there are sadder ones– Ugliest Tattoos is on my blogroll.  But this one must be way up there:

I have a recommendation for his left arm, though—something from Leviticus 19.   Lev 19:26 Eat not on the mountains, nor shall ye employ auguries, nor divine by inspection of birds. Lev 19:27 Ye shall not make a round cutting of the hair of your head, nor disfigure your beard. Lev 19:28 And ye shall not make cuttings in your body for a dead body, and ye shall not inscribe on yourselves any marks. I am the Lord your God. Lev 19:29 Thou shalt not profane thy daughter to prostitute her; so the land shall not go a whoring, and the land be filled with iniquity.  Uh-oh. So even if this wrestler avoids the temptation to lie with a man, he’s damned by Leviticus 19:28. Heck, at this point he might as well go get funky and wild with a quadruped.

What gets me, though, is just the idea that someone would be so committed to disapproving of homosexuality that they’d see fit to indelibly mark that disapproval on their body.  Normally when people get Bible versus tattooed on them (and plenty do, regardless of what Leviticus may say), it’s something inspiring.  Something from Psalms, or perhaps John 3:16.  Not this guy– he wants to be sure the world knows that he thinks an Old Testament verse condemning homosexuality from a chapter immediately preceding one that condemns bad haircuts is right on the money.  Well okay, thanks for sharing.  Maybe if he turns out to be gay himself, or just realizes that there is in fact nothing wrong with being gay, he can use this tattoo as an object lesson on how minds change.  I’ll be optimistic and hope that he already does.

It’s not (just) the word; it’s how you use it

It’s not (just) the word; it’s how you use it published on 2 Comments on It’s not (just) the word; it’s how you use it

Somebody pointed out in the Pharyngula thread that while “female” can be used as a noun, so can “black,” and it doesn’t sound very good to refer to a black person as simply “a black.”  Comedian Lisa Lampanelli refers to “the blacks” on purpose because being offensive is her shtick.  I think that using those words as nouns rather than adjectives seems dehumanizing because it makes it sound as if being black or female is the totality of who you are, rather than a descriptor.  I don’t actually know anybody who refers to women as “females” when talking about individuals in a social context, but would find it odd and off-putting if someone did.

Somebody else pointed out that Jen McCreight has used the word “female” on her blog before without any objections, which earned a swift and biting reply:

So, I just went back and looked at my 104 blog posts from December, January, and February to see if you’re right*. Here’s my usage of the word “female”:
– 5 times to refer to “A large list of awesome female atheists” to promote diversity
– 3 times as an adjective, one of which was referring to myself
– 7 times in a quote from someone else that I was debating, so not my words
– Once as a noun – when referring to females of all species, not just humans So, yeah, maybe there’s not a peep because I’m not using the word female in a way that could potentially be found offensive. Imagine that.

Also, I don’t think it’s really necessary to pounce on someone for using the word “hysterical” when referring to women, regardless of its origin.  It doesn’t mean that person is secretly a misogynist.  It’s entirely possible for women– yes, including feminists– to be irrationally excited or outraged about something.  It’s obviously wrong to use to word to dismiss legitimate concerns, but not inappropriate across the board.

I don’t believe that words have power when divorced from context– magical invocations are not real.  The context always matters.  We teach children not to use certain words because it’s much simpler that way– they’re capable of grasping “Don’t use the word ‘stupid.'”  Later on they (hopefully) come to understand that there are a multitude of situations in which saying “stupid” is perfectly acceptable.  Part of becoming mature is realizing that the usage is important too.  Who is speaking?  What are they talking about?  Are they being sarcastic, hyperbolic, jokey, poetic?  Intent isn’t fucking magic, either.  But it does matter.   The people yelling “It’s all about intent” are just as wrong as the ones yelling “It’s all about the language you use.”  It’s both, dammit.

I’ll end with Jay Smooth talking about how to tell people they sound racist.  It’s a bit old, but this is one video everybody should see.  Maybe it could be useful in the sex/gender conversation, too…fancy!

The only thing I hate about being a feminist…

The only thing I hate about being a feminist… published on 20 Comments on The only thing I hate about being a feminist…
Bill Bailey, hilarious feminist

…is that it’s still possible to make general statements criticizing them and be taken seriously. 

Richard Dawkins weighed in on the sex/gender dispute, pretty much attributing all of the consternation to a blanket disapproval of the “million dollar challenge” (an experiment intended to show that women are essentially sexual gate keepers by asking how many men would accept a million-dollar bet to find a woman who would sleep with them by the end of the day, versus how many women would) and the use of the word “females” to refer to women.  Missing the point rather grandly, I would say, in agreement with Jen McCreight’s comment here.

But what mainly irks me is this: he is able to say, honestly and truthfully, that “When the Million Dollar Challenge was offered at the American Atheists meeting, it deeply offended some feminists.” Which, of course, allows commenters who find the offense unjustified to immediately set upon the “feminists.” Oh, those darn feminists, always so outraged about the silliest little things.  No sense of humor or perspective.  Only a feminist would be bothered over this “hysterical twaddle” (as Dawkins put it).  I’m trying to imagine what would happen if an experiment regarding race was presented at a meeting, and he said that it “deeply offended some people concerned with racial relations.”  One would hope that everyone is concerned about racial relations, and so would find it rather ridiculous to say something like “People concerned with racial relations getting offended, nothing new to see here.”

Likewise, I would say that everyone should be concerned about gender relations.  It’s certainly open for debate whether feminism should be primarily about disposition (as in, “I believe firmly that women are equal in value to men and should have the same rights as far as is possible”) or disposition and interests (“I believe all of that, plus I’m specially concerned with how women are viewed socially by men and each other”).  There are plenty of people in the former group who don’t consider themselves feminists because they’re not also in the latter.  There are also, I’m sure, plenty of people who are in both groups but who don’t call themselves feminists because they associate them exclusively with those people who are irrationally outraged, however you might choose to define that.  I don’t like being associated with Andrea Dworkin, but that certainly isn’t enough to make me disavow membership in an entire body of people concerned with gender on the broader scale.

If Dawkins had said that when the Million Dollar Challenge was presented, it “deeply offended some women,”  it would have implied that women are the only ones, rightly or wrongly, who would be offended by the Challenge.  If the issue had been race, it would have been like saying that the experiment “deeply offended some black people.”  Even though the word “some” is in there, the assumption is that offense would only be felt by members of the specific group being discussed.  But aren’t we at the point now that that assumption is entirely unjustified?  That you don’t have to be a minority to be offended by racism, female to be offended by sexism, gay to be offended by homophobia? 

By asserting that the offended party are feminists, Dawkins is suggesting that feminists (however he defines them) are the only ones who would be offended. Since he does this as part of a dismissal of what he calls “hysterical twaddle,” it seems pretty clear that he thinks of feminists as being the type of people to get offended in the form of hysteria about twaddle. Some of them clearly are. But that has nothing to do with whether the offending object in fact is hysterical twaddle. People concerned about race issues often differ on whether a particular act or idea should be considered racist, and hence presumably worth getting bothered about. People concerned about gender often differ on whether a particular act or idea should be considered sexist or otherwise problematic in that regard, and hence worth getting bothered about. I happen to think that the most appropriate term for the latter group is “feminists,” and therefore that slamming feminists as a group makes a person look like an arse. And I don’t support enabling arses to proliferate in their arsiness. You don’t get to dismiss the legitimacy of offense about something by identifying the group offended by it, and certainly not by dismissing the group offended by it. That’s the essence of the ad hominem fallacy.