Oh, you thought it was Summatime? No, it's not. I have pushed the official launch of Summatime forward a little bit, and you all have to wait patiently with me for said Summa to actually arrive, because I'm still taking ECONOMICS 110. What the dude?
Economics is probably one of the bro-iest, sweatiest, male-iest fields I can think of. Maybe this is a judgment that ignorantly ignores the great work of someone named like, Martha Fry Beardlyred who did great work in the area of indifference curves or whatever, but generally, I think Econ can be considered to be pretty masculine in character, both in and outside universities. In fact, according to an Article I Read by Ann L. Owen and Elizabeth Jensen, the overrepresentation of men in the field is "undisputed", and has been most coherently explained not by "vague psychological factors" but by pedagogical and behavioral biases on the part of professors and TAs (article on Jstor).
What that means to me is this: the class is designed to make the dudes laugh more than me. The secret about college is, you can gauge your level of domination over a particular class, subject, etc. by the degree to which you are able to understand and laugh at jokes in the class material. Humor is essential for forming real understanding and confidence when engaging with course materials. When I was a TA for a Comparative Government class, I was made painfully aware of that fact. One of my primary responsibilities among the other TAs was to type up jokes on the large overhead screen about whatever hilarious country we happened to be studying at the time, and it was expected and required that I do so. ("Russian federalism? More like Russian NEVER-alism!!" Etc.)
Whenever my daily econ class engages in a hearty chortle at the expense of something hilarious like elasticity (yeah, that is how bleak it is), the laughter is clearly in a male octave. And the jokes are clearly oriented towards a certain perspective. This was made again painfully clear to me last night as I entered Hour Three of a midterm and encountered some kind of sports joke on a question about Nash Equilibria. Some sort of joke of about Steve Nash? I guess? Who plays basketball? I guess? SPORTS!!
The point is, that joke relieved the tension of whoever was lucky enough to find it humorous (dudes), eliminated an answer from the choices available, and generally improved, by some degree, understanding and success of dudes taking the test. The same professor who had me make up jokes about Russia in the poli sci class also wants me to work on his lectures for the next time he teaches it - updating jokes, among other things. He has also asked me to look for places where certain jokes might be too male-oriented for a general class, and how those might be adjusted. Which is a notable but small movement towards equalizing a general disparity in all the institutions where we Learn Stuff.
So I guess the question is: why is humor so important in dominatin'? Why is humor so male-oriented all the time? Who will pay me to do horrible dry political jokes on a cruise ship someday, and will I be allowed to eat all the free shrimp I want?
so interesting, eliza!
ReplyDeleteand who knew profs could actually hire comedy writers to make them funnier? that almost seems immoral.
xo
i've been noticing on facebook that certain males have to make jokes when womyn's issues come up. it's a way of showing that they just won't take seriously whatever you're talking about. it's a very simple but effective move, kind of analogous to a head-butt. i have no idea how to respond to it.
ReplyDeletelike, the whole christopher hitchens thing about how women aren't funny. you can tell that that whole thing is just a joke to him; he clearly doesn't really believe it, or he does but knows that he shouldn't or that it's salutary to come across as not believing it, but he takes the stance of believing it because it's provocative. his famous wit is just a few layers of being a dickhead.