I did a little unofficial survey today.
I wished everyone that I’m in regular contact with a Happy International Women’s Day! Of the men that I sent it to, 50% of them replied: “but when is International Men’s Day?”
To which I of course replied: It’s on the 19th of November.
So, leaving aside that I’m apparently more in tune with MRA than these people who apparently are so worried about one day a year not being about men… let’s break down why this is a shitty thing to say to someone who’s wishing you a happy IWD.
For one thing, having a day to promote women doesn’t stop you from celebrating men. If you’d like to celebrate a man, or men in general, crack on. My celebrating International Women’s Day doesn’t stop you.
Of the men who asked “what about IMD though?”, 100% of them were “joking”. This is an issue because, so what if it’s a joke? It’s still a shit thing that you said. You can hold all the best beliefs deep down in your heart of hearts but, as Diane says in Bojack Horseman: “I don’t think I believe in deep down. I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do”. And, by that logic, what you believe doesn’t matter. It’s what you do that counts. And if what you do is, when someone mentions something that exists to promote equality like IWD, say “but what about me though? :’-( ”, then that says something about you. And what it says is not good.
Another counter to the “joke” defence is that jokes do not exist in a vacuum. Everything you do has an effect on the people around you. Studies have shown that, when you create ambiguous comedy about a circumstance, people who already agree with you will understand that you’re satirising, but the people you’re supposedly sending up… they think that you’re on their side, helping them speak truth to power. An example of this is Loadsamoney, a character played by Harry Enfield. Loadsa Money was supposed to be a commentary on the money-obsessed 80s culture in Thatcher’s Britain. And people who were already bothered by this, got that. But the people who it was supposed to be making fun of actually thought that Harry Enfield, and everyone else laughing along, agreed with them and their dubious morals, and this belief made them more confident. So, when you make a joke about International Men’s Day, or women staying in the kitchen, think about who’s laughing along with you. Are they the people that you want to side with?
Even if we allow this question to be termed a “joke”, then is it comedy worth performing? I believe that comedy works best when it punches up and makes fun of the people doing the oppressing, rather than the oppressed. Contrapoints talks about this much better than I possibly can in her video The Darkness. She points out that comedy can’t be purely social justice, but equally it shouldn’t be the verbal equivalent of shitposting – getting laughs at any cost, with no regard for what you’re saying or how it can make the world a shitter place. Jokes like this turn into, as Natalie Wynn says, “Just a privileged person with a platform punching down at a politically besieged group he understands nothing about… like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire.”
And that’s the problem with making jokes like this. The people making these jokes are almost always the people with the least to lose. It’s easy to joke about taking away women’s rights when you’re a man and it won’t affect you, or to think it’s hilarious joking about deporting immigrants when you’re white and have never faced racism. It’s only funny to you because, should the worst happen and the joke come true, you won’t be the one up shit creek without a paddle. It’s much less funny when the barrier between you and having your rights taken away seems so thin that you feel like you could poke your finger right through it to the dystopian future that waits on the other side.
So Happy International Women’s Day everyone. I hope it was a good one for you. And, if it bothered you, IMD is only 256 days away.
Eternally Optomistic 