Comedy fail

Here’s a thing I see all too often: An image of a person is posted online, sometimes with a demeaning caption. People pile in to ridicule. My experience is that frequently when the image is of a women, there will be male commentators who remark on how gross they imagine sexual contact with this woman would be. All too frequently when this happens, they go unchallenged. If you do challenge, you can expect (if you are female) to be told that you are fat, ugly and sexually unattractive, and people of any gender who complain will be told the problem is they have no sense of humour.

It’s really not funny.

If we don’t challenge this, we are tacitly supporting it and the people who do it will continue to assume that what they do is ok, funny and that you and everyone else likes it and approves. More often than not this is about men commenting on women, but it is supported by women and we do it to the guys as well, so while there’s a definite gender bias, it’s not a one way street. Regardless of gender, if you keep silent, you are complicit and if you speak up you will probably (but not always) get some verbal abuse.

Here are some points to help you tackle this when you encounter it.

1)      The odds are that the person in the photo is not aware of the picture or that it is circulating. This is a real person with real feelings. They probably aren’t responsible for any demeaning captions.

2)      In judging a stranger purely on how they look in the moment of a bad photograph, we reduce them. We say ‘only this facet of them matters’. Appearance is not something we have total control over. How a person behaves and what they choose to do is more important than how they look, and what a person appears to be doing in a solitary photo is not fair evidence of who they are.

3)      When we publically speculate about how gross it would be to have sex with someone, we are implying that we are either entitled or able to have that level of contact with them. This tends to be something guys do over women and it reinforces the idea of women as passive sex objects who aren’t entitled to choose. Reinforcing the idea that women aren’t entitled to choose quietly perpetrates rape culture.

4)      Reducing a person (usually a woman) to their sexual desirability is dehumanising, it is treating the person as a piece of available meat. Again, this is a rape culture issue.

5)      All of this behaviour is rude and demeaning. It is unnecessary, and the odds are the people doing it would not appreciate being treated on the same terms. The object of ridicule has been dehumanised and depersonalised for them in a way that makes it seem ok. Try asking how they would feel if someone talked about their mother, sister or daughter in these terms.

6)      It isn’t funny, but you don’t have to go very far back in time to find racists using the ‘comedy’ excuse to justify racism. Be absolutely clear that ‘sexist humour’ isn’t funny, it is sexism and offensive. Guys, if you uphold this one it has particular power, sexist guys being found unfunny by other men are more likely to realise they are out of order.

7)      If you get the feedback that you are ugly and not sexually attractive to the perpetrator, treat it as an enormous joke – how very funny it is that they imagine you would give them an option on getting anywhere near you! Point out that sexism isn’t innately attractive. Random abuse from strangers can painful and threatening, be prepared for it and do not take it seriously. If you are directly threatened, do take it seriously, that’s a matter for the police.

If you catch people doing this, try to call them out without being abusive in turn. It is enough to say ‘this isn’t funny, or kind or needed and you wouldn’t like it or find it amusing if we did it to you.’