Where do we cross the line?

A few days ago one of my mates sent a funny joke to our Whatsapp Group Chat which I found terribly funny. It really was hilarious. It’s the sort of joke you can’t help but want to pass around. The only problem is that I thought my female friends might not appreciate it.

That’s the challenge I have – the funniest of jokes I always enjoy are the ones that aren't necessarily enjoyed across the genders. To share the joke with my female friends or not to share it, that’s the question. What I find funny, my female counterparts may find offensive. You see, men, generally draw fun and entertainment from enduring pain (both physical and sometimes emotional) and females don’t. I see it all the time. The games we played as kids. Actually, the games we still play as adult men. Every morning when we have our site meetings in the boardroom, you have to constantly look out because the guy sitting next to you might just pull the knob of the recliner chair to see you sink down, a feat which the rest of the colleagues (all males) will find utterly funny. I mean, our favourite pastime as kids was to have dissing matches. We loved making fun of each other. There was no such thing as “I take offense to that”.

Maybe that’s how we are made up. Look at how kindergarten boys entertain each other on the playground. And look at how little girls play. Two different worlds. I mean, the most fun I had during break (or recess as the Americans call it) at primary school was when the boys in our class would team up and challenge the boys in another class to a karate battle. And boy, did we kick each other, showing off our best karate moves. Man, I loved it. Girls, on the other hand – uhm, I actually don’t even remember what games they played during break. Whatever it was, it most certainly didn't end with one nursing a bruise from a flying kick or something crazy like that.

Back to the joke I got from my friends – I had a dilemma. Do I forward the joke to my female friends or not? Ugh, forwarding it to other male friends was a no-brainer, really. They’d enjoy it as much as we (the gents in my group) did. But what about my female friends? Would they be offended? The reality is I really didn't have to share it with them (girls). I could have easily enjoyed the joke with the boys and left it there. But my courage surprises even me sometimes. I decided I was going to venture into the lions’ den and see how far I could push the boundaries. I forwarded the joke to a few of my close female friends. Their reaction was confusing. All of them gave the same, confusing response. “This is sooooo wrong; but it’s funny”.

Now, a few years ago I worked in an all-male office. Boy we had fun. Passing around emails was, as would be expected, a normal thing. One day, a funny email was passed around. We all thought it was very hilarious. The email in question was of a cartoon, depicting two stone-age men engaged in conversation. One of the men’s wife is standing right behind him, and completely quiet – she can’t talk, she doesn't know how to, apparently. But she’s smiling. Then the man says to his friend, “I've decided to teach her to talk – what harm can it do?”. The joke in the cartoon is obviously that it is men that taught women how to talk. And much worse, because the man taught the woman how to talk, we now have the terrible world we live in today.

Obviously, this is a sexist cartoon and downright wrong. No question about it. Of course, I do not think that women caused the problems we have in the world, let alone that it was a man that taught a woman how to talk. But, I’m not going lie and be disingenuous  – I still find the cartoon a tad funny, albeit somewhat uncomfortable. That’s the honest truth. And the gender activist in me fights very hard not to laugh whenever I think of it.

So yesterday I looked for that cartoon. I then toyed with the idea of pushing the boundaries yet again – I thought of forwarding it to my female friends. But the difference this time was that I was going be forthright and deliberate about my actions. I wanted to interrogate why I found this cartoon “uncomfortable” and funny at the same time.

So I finally summoned all the courage I needed and I forwarded the cartoon to my sisters as well as my female friends. After sending the cartoon, I quickly asked each one of them if they found it funny. I didn't give them a chance to think. I wanted to know what their immediate response was. And the responses I got were confusing, for me, as a man. For fear of stigmatizing women and perpetuating gender prejudice, I will not post the cartoon here. In any event, an overwhelming majority of them found it funny. BUT, after I mentioned that I was doing research for the blog, the responses were “revised” and became a little bit polished. After this, some even accused me of tricking them. Eish.

My next question was to ask if they thought the cartoon was offensive. While some thought it wasn't really offensive, two of them thought it was – “especially since the guy was talking about his own wife”, one of them added. She was serious. And then another friend offered, “…because this (joke) is coming from you, I didn’t take it as offensive. Had it been coming from a dude who’s insensitive to women issues, I’d be offended”. This sentiment was echoed by yet another friend. Interesting.

Another close friend throws in a different perspective. She declares that the cartoon is not funny. This coming from her, I became interested. I asked her why. But as would be expected, her reason was rather "colourful", something I should have seen coming – “I have a reputation of talking too much, so this feels personal”. And then she laughs.

But then I also probed this one dear friend of mine on what she thought. Now, she’s an academic, so we had to “dissect and analyse” the cartoon. The funny thing though is despite her initial reaction of laughing at the cartoon, she then assumed a more firm position of declaring the cartoon offensive. I was not convinced, so I challenged her on this sudden change, but she justified her initial laugh as being directed to my question and not the cartoon itself. She simply refused to see the parody side of the cartoon. But we had fun.

But the funniest response that left me completely puzzled and back to square one is this here, from yet another female friend: “My genuine response was to laugh – but I had to remind myself that it’s offensive.”

After this last offering, I gave up. My female friends have to think about something before they decide whether it’s funny or not – even though they might have laughed at it. Laughing, as I've just learned, doesn't necessarily mean “it’s funny”.

(Thanks ladies (you know yourselves) for being such great sports and giving me confusing insights into the bewildering world of “female sense of humour”. But the thing is, I still don’t know where the line is and whether I've crossed it L).

But that’s not my biggest concern. Forwarding the joke was the fun part. The biggest concern is I still need to interrogate why I find the stone-age cartoon funny. The exercise was not only about recognizing where the boundary line is with regards to what jokes I can share with my female friends. Knowing where the boundary line is would only help me know what not to say to women, while I still privately find sexist jokes funny. That is the problem!

And for now, that remains my challenge.