Audience poll

[derdriu]

So I was reading an article a friend linked to and an interesting question/challenge came out of the discussion. Now the article itself is full of fail for many reasons, the majority of which are eloquently pointed out here. So I'm not going to talk about that. I am, however, going to ask for your opinions, dear friends, on an issue brought up in

Comments

[invertedreptile]

I wonder about that. Does she mean that it hurts less to laugh /with/ retard/homo/racist jokes when they appear than to get offended? because that is *ahem* leotarded. I mean, it is probably accurate, but it implies a really appalling passivity. Now, I'm all for laughing /at/ said obnoxious jokes, in a "ahahaha oh i'm going to stab someone where is my blunt instrument" sort of way. I just prefer not to pay money for the privilege.

[derdriu]

You know, that is an excellent question. Here is the exact quote (minus some identifying info): I am a parent of a kid who has a very obvious disability (hearing aids). We feel that laughter can make those jokes less of a hurtful thing.
Given the wording, I would suspect the former of your suggestions. Now this could be my privilege speaking, but I think the sentiment may be due to a mixture of: it's an easy way of lightening the load for a kid AND being not terribly informed in the way, language and ideas of activist movements. But who knows?
Honestly, I'm with you, ibnfirnas and rattlenose. I will laugh at the jokes in the "Oh holy mother of what the fuck... seriously?" depending on the company I'm in. However, when it comes down to it, I would prefer privileged people in power would not use these jokes to affirm their power, and would either make fun of themselves or STFU.

[ibnfirnas]

I think when we make the joke ourselves, or it's in-community like from a personally trusted friend, it's a valuable coping tool. Gods know I do it. But when someone not in the community--say, a straight cissexual able-bodied upper-class white guy using the joke to rake in money from an audience of people mostly like him--it's just not the same. It's the same person in power speaking to other people in power and using the oppressed person as a cheap joke to benefit themselves. That's not laughing with us, or for us, it's laughing at us.
The joking's okay on a "depends on the context" basis. For instance, "hey look at them over there they're so fucked up ha ha ha let's laugh together" isn't okay. "Hey look at us we're pretty fucked up sometimes aren't we" can be.

[derdriu]

Hah, yes. She's got the knack, that's for sure.

[derdriu]

Yeah, love. I'm with you.

I was just curious if anyone could make a good argument for seeing it the way the person in the conversation I was having did/does. I was willing to admit that, maybe, I had it wrong despite strong feelings that I was right.

[cupacoffey]

Whenever I read articles like this, it gets my hackles up a bit because I feel like the author is trying to box me in in some way. I feel non-specifically trapped, and then it usually takes more thinking and reading to figure out exactly why I feel that way (I know virtually nothing about feminism). It makes me feel trapped in a person with a bunch of "shoulds" thrust upon them way, not so much a being a woman in a man's world kinda way, as such articles focus more talk on women than men, but there are a bunch of implied boxes for men trapping in them, too. They encourage a gender divide, as if happiness is a zero sum game. Being people is not a competition, it's a collaboration

Here I am again, brandishing the Scientific Method

[cupacoffey]

Okay, I lied. I did go and look at the graph and read part of the original paper. I have a tome of effing rants on the matter, but in order to avoid completely hijacking your post as a mouth piece for my pet peeves, I will just say that sloppy application of mathematics appears to be pretty much standard practice in many fields, and this annoys me to no end. It is further both interesting and deeply bothersome to then observe the progression from an experiment that is not entirely dumb, but* too sloppy, un-rigorous and full of unspoken assumptions and possibly an Agenda regarding data collection to really say something as definitively as our society turns to Science to say; to poor graph interpretation skills, wild unsubstantiated claims and just generally piss-poor research on the part of media; to cultural debate among a public that places way more trust than deserved in experts and the media to provide accurate information. It's like a butterfly flaps its wings in so-how-the-hell will-we-substantiate-our-claims, and then THE

[derdriu]

Yeah. While I did not read the paper (no access without paying $5), I read a lot of commentary on it and saw some of the graphs. It is apparent that they did a very obviously sloppy job at setting up their study or accounting for factors that would cause people to report accurately or inaccurately. For instance, a few brilliant people suggested that more women may be reporting a lower happiness response, not because they are less happy than they were previously, but because one of the ongoing works of feminism is to make it okay for a woman to state how she really feels rather than constantly putting on a happy face.

Also... YES to everything you said. YES.

Re: Here I am again, brandishing the Scientific Method

[ibnfirnas]

Yeah, it's extremely poor "science" they're using, and poor journalism reporting it. It's just a ridiculous agenda-laden hatchet-job of a study.