Over the years, female comedians like Amy Schumer, Chelsea Handler, Tina Fey, Melissa McCarthy, etc. have excelled in the comedy world and ultimately, shaped women’s comedy for society today (Sperling, pg. 3 - 4). Daily, women are told that they aren’t funny, sometimes in the context of a joke, and other times not. For decades, it has been a constant debate about whether women can appreciate and understand humor. Some women are able to brush this stereotype off when it is joked about, but others get offended and are tired of fighting this daily battle. Today, we continue to gender stereotype humor due to social status, emotional sensitivity, and lack of intelligence. 

The gender stereotype of women being “unfunny” began in the late nineteenth century and has continued to be around since then. Women back then were known for their “morality, passivity, and spirituality” (Wagner, pg. 1). It was not common for women to be considered funny because society considered comedy as a more masculine and inappropriate activity. Women like “Fay Tincher, Constance Talmadge, and Dorothy Devore established their own version of comedy” (Wagner, pg. 1), this new comedy was known as the “feminine” comedy and was much less rough than the masculine, slap-stick styled humor. Although there were still someone women who weren’t afraid to embrace the masculine-type of comedy, this new type of comedy allowed women to be comedians as well. What people didn’t understand was that gender plays’ a huge role in comedy and each gender has a different viewpoint as to what they consider is “funny”.  From there, women continued to break societal gender norms’ and began to break out of the expected feminine behavior. Even though women began to care less, society still continues to care. 

What most people don’t even realize is that they are offending women and stereotyping them when they say that that they aren’t funny. It is now considered norm and a way to get under a females’ skin. It is time that people recognize that this stereotype still exists and is still a problem. Today, people care way too much about their social statuses. They want the attention on them and they want to be the funny ones. What people tend to forget is that everyone is different, we all carry different opinions and emotions. All women and all men having different opinions on what they consider is funny. Along with these reasons, is just an overall lack of intelligence. Not everyone will understand every joke and find every joke funny because everyone is different. All of these aspects play a role in as to why we gender stereotype humor. 

Social status plays a large role in as to why we gender stereotype humor. Generally, we like to surround ourselves around people who make us happy, and laughter is what leads to happiness. As Helga Kotthoff said, “anyone who makes other people laugh has monetary control of the situation” (Kotthoff, pg. 8). Therefore, the more laughter you cause, the higher your status will be. When you’re making people laugh it draws their attention your way and in this generation, everyone craves attention. The more laughs a person gets, leads to the farther they are willing to go to get more. This means that people with higher “statuses” tend to pick on the weaker ones as their targets. Females have been always considered the “weaker” gender due to other stereotypes so they can often be one of these targets. Men constantly feel as if they are in a competition with one another so they continue to challenge each other in every little thing. Making people laugh is a prime example of this, men will continue to try and “one-up” each other with jokes in hopes of raising their statuses with a female.

 Along with this, a male by the name of Christopher Hitchens wrote a whole article in Vanity Fair about why women aren’t funny, he explained that one reason for women not being funny was that men “don’t want them to be funny, they want them to be their audience” (Hitchens, pg. 4). He explained that some men believe that their only way of being attractive to women is by being funny, while women just have to look pretty. If women are funny then that is considered threatening to men because they are stealing their skill. We care too much about our social statuses and how other people see us rather than our own beliefs and how we view ourselves. We stereotype humor constantly as a way to raise our own social status. The need for societal dominance is like a cycle, the more superior you feel, the more inferior someone else feels. 

Women have always been believed to have very strong emotions, they are especially known for having emotional sensitivity. Emotional sensitivity is another cause for gender stereotyping humor. Women tend to be less aggressive with their humor than men. As it was previously stated, in the past, women were considered very feminine and ladylike, while humor was considered an aggressive, masculine activity (Wagner, pg. 1). This leads to the stereotype that “women aren’t funny” because men and women have different types of humor. In general, men like the more physical, aggressive, slap stick humor, while women typically don’t find humor in people harming themselves and are essentially more empathetic with their humor (Wu, pg. 1). Wu concluded this observation though conducting an experiment with young adolescents and concluding which style of humor the males and females preferred.  While the males tended to enjoy a more physical style of humor including dangerous stunts and self-harm, the women preferred to take a different route with their humor. This difference in opinions and aggressiveness leads to people generalizing and forming stereotypes.

One of the biggest reasons for gender stereotyping today is the lack of intelligence. As Ellie Kemper said in a Ted Talk “some women are tall, and some women are short, just like how some women like to take the train, and some women prefer to take the bus, women are different” (TedxTalks), and it is time that people start understanding that. Not all women are funny, just like not all men are funny. You don’t only need the intelligence to know that everyone is different but also the intelligence to understand jokes in general. Nobody understands every joke they are told and nobody finds every joke funny. Some people lack the intelligence to understand some jokes. This can be seen as people being not funny when in reality it is just a lack of intelligence. Men and women also find different things funny which is why they can sometimes think the opposite gender is the one that’s not funny. Lack of intelligence is one of the biggest reasons we gender stereotype because not understanding a joke is seen as not being funny in society today. 

All of these aspects have contributed to the reasons we continue to gender stereotype humor. Over the years, this stereotype has affected female comedians and the recognition that they truly deserve. In the same Vanity Fair article that was previously talked about, Christopher Hitchens claimed that “it’s not that there are no decent female comedians, but that there are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians” (Hitchens, pg. 3). Women are constantly having to fight for the praise and recognition they deserve because of the falsely assumed stereotypes. In a speech for Ted Talk, Ellie Kemper told a story about when she was at one of her press conferences for her movie Bridesmaids and was asked how it felt to be in a movie surrounded by so many funny women (TedxTalks). It should not be a shock that a lot of funny women exist. Those women should just be praised for their hard work rather than questioned for being humorous.  Although this is not as big of a problem, people tend to forget stereotypes do still exist and they are still a problem. Successful comedic actresses like Amy Schumer, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, etc. have helped decrease the belief in this stereotype with their humorous roles but it is important that society continues to be aware of this problem. 

We have continued to gender stereotype women with humor for decades due to social status seeking, differences in emotional sensitivity, and overall lack of intelligence. Women in society have continued to fight this battle of whether they are funny or not and have made tremendous progress over this issue. It is important that society becomes aware of this issue and realizes that all women and men are different. We all have different traits and qualities which is why you can’t generalize and group people together. If gender stereotyping humor is brought to light and society realizes that it still exists, not only will this stereotype diminish but others as well can be stopped. 