Growing up, I’ve always aspired to be funny.
I didn’t want to achieve comedy-level entertainment standards. But I wanted to be humorous enough that when I’m in a group setting I could casually lighten up the space with a quick one-liner or dumb internet phrase.
In adolescence and in becoming a young adult, I’ve become more aware of my social environment and the ways that I present myself in certain spaces.
As a feminine and slightly androgynous-presenting person in largely male-dominated friend groups since high school, there have been times where I’ve felt my jokes didn’t land in the same way as my guy friends.
While there were times I’d get a few good hits, I’d say my humor success rate was about 65% while lots of my guy friends were about 90%.
I see this all the time on social media, but less subtly than my personal interactions with friends.
I always see videos of women using unique humor in online spaces, but instead of being praised, they’re ridiculed, berated in the comment sections and told they’re unfunny. Whereas a guy who uses the same humor becomes the king of all comedy.
Women being told that they’re unoriginal or unfunny is something people in the internet space don’t bat an eye to anymore.
A girl may be seen as funny, but with that are attributes to their personality, their looks, their aesthetic which are perceived as more masculine in nature.
I’ve always asked the question: how, as a girl, can I be funny while not being cringe? How can I be feminine, but not so feminine that I’m not taken seriously?
But these simply aren’t the right questions.
The real question is why does the world associate masculinity with humor and why is femininity so excluded from this?
Some critiques of this imbalanced structure I found on the internet are very interesting to read.
Some comment on the fact there has always been a power difference between men and women, and how that can play into comedy.
Throughout history, men have dominated the social playing field and society has been consistently patriarchal. People are more likely to please or laugh with the person who holds the most power in the room.
Unconsciously, that could be the most masculine-presenting person in the room.
For so long, women have been oppressed to not speak and have voices and many spaces, but now that we do, those internal biases still remain so prevalent in our society.
So the answer to my original question is, no, masculinity isn’t a requirement to being funny, and it shouldn’t! Humor is subjective; it’s up to the interpretation and experiences of the observer.
Humor shouldn’t be gendered, but society still perpetuates a system, unconsciously or not, that negatively portrays femininity.
However, not all hope is lost and social constraints are ever-changing.
We are the change-makers that switch up narratives by uplifting our friends and peers to be themselves in casual spaces.
Have you ever thought about how society impacts humor in our social interactions? Let us know @HerCampusSJSU!