When I started reading Cynthia and Julie Willett’s essay, “The
Seriously Erotic Politics of Laughter: Bitches, Whores and Other Fumerists,” I
was immediately draw back to the work of Lloyd early on in the semester as they
discuss how all women (particularly feminists) aren’t associated with humor and
how typically men are. In Lloyd’s work (“Reason, Gender, and Morality in the
History of Philosophy”) a groundwork is placed for why women are associated
with emotions and men are associated with reasons. As the Willetts say in their
essays, there are plenty of serious issues that feminists try to deal with, and
the seriousness of both the issues and their approach to them may create this
image, but I see a large disconnect somewhere.
If men are seen as the people more associated with reason,
how can they also be seen as the people with humor? Yes, a good joke sometimes
requires well thought out rhetoric in word play or irony, but then again people
also laugh at some very unintelligible things.
Another thing to consider: There have been multiple studies
that show that women who smile seem more attractive (than woman who don’t) and
men who don’t smile seem more attractive (than men who do), so why is it that men
are more associated with a something that makes people smile? And why should attractiveness
go against a general association?
People must really not know what they want. Do you even know
yourself?
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