What a wonderful joke, Ana.
That's one to keep and pass on.
Paul D
----- Original Message -----
From: Ana Marjanovic Shane
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 8:26 AM
Subject: a friendly joke
Hi,
Gender relationships are a very sensitive subject (we all know) and very
complex one too. Because it relates to each one of us in a unique and a very
personal way, it is hard to look at these jokes in a way that would permit
us to study the asymmetry Mike found out in trying to re-write them for men.
But I find the asymmetry fascinating. It is rather like the asymmetry which
exists in metaphors: You can say "Juliet is the sun" but the other way "The
sun is Juliet" just does not make any sense.
Sometimes you can invert a metaphor and get another metaphor but with a
completely different meaning
"As a surgeon s/he is a butcher."/"As a butcher s/he is a surgeon."
Looking at the asymmetry in the re-write one can pinpoint the finer
aspects of the asymmetry in gender relationships.
Anyway - I am fascinated by the possibility of studying gender jokes as
metaphors and use the findings to create new strategies in making the
relationships more just and more positive. But I can also feel the hurt when
the jokes are USED rather than merely DISPLAYED as a subject for analysis.
Because I think that jokes are important and in the interest of the group
cohesion and heeling, I offer another joke. I hope that a joke can also heel
and not just hurt:
Two flowers stood next to each other for a long time. They fell in love
with each other. Every day they would look at each other, gently sway to the
breeze and sigh a lot. After a long time, one flower blushed and said:
"Darling, would you let me call a bee?"
Ana
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