Stop telling us to lighten up

Last week at Warwick, we were celebrating International Women’s Week. For this, myself and a number of societies worked hard to put on events to celebrate women, their achievements and their voices in a world where their representation is still neglected. It was especially disheartening then, to tune into our campus radio station and hear a show entitled ‘The Cool Boys’ make some particularly tired, particularly crap sexist jokes. The show started with the DJs talking about a party they’d ended up at ‘full of typical feminists… you know the kind.’

SU Women’s Officer, Louisa Ackermann

Firstly, why wasn’t I invited to this party? Secondly, what even is a ‘typical feminist’? I know feminists of every size, shape, gender, sexuality and colour. I’m guessing maybe they meant something along the lines of the overweight lesbian with hairy armpits that the commenters on the Mail Online often refer to in connection with feminism. However, the idea of a ‘typical feminist’ as a bad or laughable thing is already sexist. If the implication is that it’s a bad thing to be an overweight lesbian with hairy armpits, then you’re playing into the idea that there is a specific model a woman should fit into. This is about as limiting of women – and thus as misogynistic – as you can get.

The DJs recounted how they had asked the attendees of the party whether they wanted to hear a joke… ‘Women’s Rights!’ – Good one guys. Top banter. They then went on to say ‘But no really, we love our shawties, we love women… we also love dogs and animals. They’re all in the same category right?’

When I reached the DJs for comment, Joe and Thomas were keen to stress that it had not been them who made the comments, and all three said the comments were not a reflection of their values. Jack expressed concerns that he would be ‘mis-represented’ as sexist, and stated that ‘publishing the article would be a huge defamation of character.’

Well, sorry ‘Cool Boys’, but here we are. Let me just reiterate; the show took to a radio broadcast to say women are comparable with ‘dogs and animals.’ There is no nuance or irony here, the comments were utterly unacceptable. You don’t get to say these things and then declare yourself ‘not sexist.’

This is not only a really shit joke, but one that exemplifies a ridiculous level of entitlement that comes along with such entrenched structural privilege. It is absolutely not something that can be hidden behind its ‘humour’, with any woman who objects to being compared to a dog in a campus wide radio broadcast being in need of ‘lightening up.’

Sick chat boys

But what about their free speech? Even if we ignore the fact that the comments breached their radio contract regarding Ofcom’s guidelines and the radio station’s rules, lets run with the idea that it’s fine to make jokes however politically incorrect, sexist, racist, whatever-ist you want. However, you cannot then fall back on this when someone exercises their free speech to call you out on whatever prejudicial trope your joke contained. Far too often, people seem to confuse ‘freedom of speech’ with ‘freedom of consequences from whatever you choose to say.’

I’m white. If I were to make a joke based on racial stereotypes that offended a person of colour, then it is me who has fucked up. However well intentioned I was to convey something with humour, or irony, or ‘but-of-course-I-don’t-actually-think-this-and-that’s-the-joke’, it would be my fault. I am in no position to tell people who experience racism daily what they should and shouldn’t find offensive. Similarly, men do not get a say in whether women are wrong to be offended by their sexist jokes, tropes and other forms of casual sexism that they do not experience.

Not finding your jokes funny doesn’t mean we’re lacking in humour – it means your jokes just downright suck.