Daily Times

Life may be rejoiced through charity, welfare, random acts of kindness, forgiveness, integrity and engaging in acts which inspire those around us. Among many ways of celebrating our existence on this earth, one of the easiest and inexpensive ways is to use humour to dilute, if not eliminate the ironies of life itself.

One of my favourite comedic writers, Mark Twain, braved many tragedies in his personal life. He was quite literal in his analysis that “Humour is mankind’s greatest blessing.” The role of humour in human health and happiness has always been a subject of interest in academia, arts, literature and entertainment. Humour’s Hidden Power, authored by psychologist Nichole Force in 2011 made a good case that laughter really is the best medicine.

Do men and women differ in their humour or capacity to be funny? The answer may vary in different cultural settings. Psychology professor Robert R Provine of the University of Maryland studied social interaction in various public urban spaces in 1993 and found that women laugh significantly more than men, and that both men and women laugh more at men than at women. Although men consistently gain the most laughs, research has repeatedly shown men and women to be equally funny when it comes to producing humour.

While growing up in Zia-ul-Haq’s intellectually stunted regime, I made fond memories of comedy on the only (state-owned) TV channel, PTV. PTV created some extraordinary comedies, like Fifty-Fifty. It introduced multi-talented women comedy legends like Zeba Shahnaz and Bushra Ansari. The male decision makers of PTV must be credited for having faith in the dividend of creating spaces for women in a stifling environment.

Unfortunately, female stereotypes are found in jokes all over the world. For example, ‘A quiet man is a thinking man. A quiet woman is usually mad’ or ‘What books do women like the most? Their husbands’ chequebook!’

Law, personal values and common sense often construct an unseen code of ethics in humour for public consumption. Broadly speaking, there is no subject that is not inappropriate for humour

Law, personal values and common sense often construct an unseen code of ethics in humour for public consumption. Broadly speaking, there is no subject that is not inappropriate for humour. One most apt example in this regards is the Oscar winning Italian movie Life is Beautiful in which humour was employed to treat a subject as sad and sensitive as the Holocaust. The activist, author and clown doctor, Hunter Patch Adams (who became globally recognised in 1998, through the semi-biographical comedy-drama film Patch Adams starring Robin Williams) treats his patients with humour. Hence, there is nothing depraved, gender insensitive and anti-feminist in humour and laughter therapy. Humour becomes questionable only when it is in bad taste and it is spiteful in nature despite having wit. Thus decency demands that racist and sexist jokes must be avoided. The psychological consequences of offensive lexicon are scientific realities. Their casual and careless use with women only reflects subtle misogyny. This does not stop here. The glossary of any language and dialect is full of homophobic and anti-women idioms, proverbs and similes’ besides association of swear words with womanhood. Any strong, stalwart and stubborn woman can be conveniently referred to with the B-word or diagnosed as a hysterical feminist. The impact of misogynist language resonates in biased public policies, cold shoulder welcomes to women in non-traditional sectors, castigation of victims of sexual violence, women legislators and politicians and so and so forth.

All work and no play is not even good for work and evidence-based research exists to prove more than two dozen health benefits related to humour and increase in productivity and performance through humour at the workplace. The same medicine can become a poison when packed in negatively styled communication and translates in to harassment at work places.

Humour is traditionally seen a part of the male sexual armoury and they do have an advantage in humour too. Even liberated and accomplished women (who are too few) and apparently modern men (who are always in a majority) in C-suits are enslaved by certain stereotypes.

An eminent entrepreneur Lynne Parker, the founder of Funny Women, who helps women to perform write and sell comedy, revealed research based information in her blog which said that female bosses are less likely to make jokes in the boardroom. When they did, more than 80 percent of their quips were met with silence. By comparison, 90 percent of jokes made by men were met with a positive response.

Jokes are needed in our nearly smile-free and freely frowned society where we never give up an opportunity to laugh at others and have practically stopped laughing unreservedly with each other and acquiring pure joy from in valuable things of beauty. Alas! Mistreating women through sexist language cannot be equated to ‘Just Joking!’

In spite of being a feminist (straight and Muslim! Yes it is possible!) who often receives ‘hate male’(I can and do laugh at this joke as well), I am against disciplining humour. However, it should remain healthy and not harmful.

The writer is a gender expert, researcher, activist, a free thinker and a former PTV anchor for live morning and current affairs shows and producer. She can be reached at dr.r.perveen@gmail.com or Twitter@survivorwins

Published in Daily Times, November 15^th 2017.