Humor and Feminist Identity In an early study of discourse in feminist consciousness-raising groups, Susan Kalcik (1975) noted that humor was used supportively to increase group cohesion. The women in these groups frequently mocked themselves. When one woman had difficulty expressing herself, she apologized with, “Well, you know how we women are; our hormones get […]

Humor in Women’s Talk With Women A few researchers have studied women’s humor in all-female groups, and most have noted differences between it and the kind of humor that emerges in mixed-sex or all-male groups. The most extensive discussion of these differences is by Mercilee Jenkins (1986), who maintains that humor in all-female and all-male […]

If the discourse of sexist humor is an attempt to control women’s meanings, are there effective strategies for reasserting control? Cocktail waitresses, students, and investment bankers alike can be effectively si­lenced when those who denigrate them have institutionalized power over them. But there are other situations in which power relations are less con­straining. Street remarks […]

Sexual Humor and Male Dominance Michael Mulkay (1988) has examined the representation of women in men’s sexual humor by analyzing dirty jokes (collected by folklore re­searchers) and comic routines in British pubs (observed by ethnographers). The assumptions underlying men’s sexual humor, and the ways in which it represents male-female relationships, may function both to express […]

I have conceptualized gender as a system operating at three levels in order to provide a heuristic for examining how sexuality is constructed in mundane interaction, and how the interactional level functions in con­junction with social structural and individual aspects of gender. I hope that this approach will foster thinking across disciplinary boundaries. Gender at […]

Within the discourse of gender, certain traits, behaviors, and interests are associated with women, and others with men. Gender is assumed to be dichotomous—a person can be classified as either masculine or feminine but not both—and to reside within the individual. Moreover, the mascu­line pole of this constructed dichotomy is the more valued. People develop […]

Gender cues are used to tell us how to behave toward others in social interactions, although much of this sex-differential treatment happens out­side awareness. The behavior of men and boys is often evaluated more positively than the behavior of women and girls. Even when a woman and a man behave in identical ways, their behavior […]

The social constructionist views gender as a system of meaning that organizes interactions and governs access to power and resources. From this view, gender is not an attribute of individuals but a way of making sense of transactions. Gender exists not in persons but in transactions; it is con­ceptualized as a verb, not a noun. […]

MARY CRAWFORD In a California university, a professor circulates a memo to faculty proposing a faculty-student conference room outfitted with an inflatable Madonna doll and a waterbed, for innovative conferences with women students. When he is reprimanded by the university’s faculty representative on sexual harassment, he calls her a “nasty, scheming, backstabbing bitch.” The waterbed […]

Arguing that medical authorities have claimed a privileged and pow­erful position in constructing the predominant discourse of sexuality, Sue Sherwin (1992) challenges feminists to critically address biomedical ethics and excise prevailing practices that result in women’s oppression. She points out that “physicians have been socially authorized to advise on sex­ual matters, although most of them […]