Everyone loves a good joke. The kind that makes you burst out uncontrollably, perhaps even bringing tears to your eyes from the enjoyment. With so much hate in the world, it feels nice to be able to laugh at something occasionally. But what do we find funny? A large focus for many comedians and many more comedic shows is on disparagement humor, specifically sexist jokes. Whether it be stand-up comics like Daniel Tosh, or the fictional characters in South Park, sexist humor is not only on display for the public constantly, but is sometimes the center piece of a joke. While it may be harmless to chuckle at a sexist remark occasionally, the goal of this research is to pinpoint the lasting effects of observing sexist humor so regularly as it is displayed in society. Wildly inappropriate sexist humor that is frequently displayed to the public eye has caused an increase of hostile sexism in society.

Hostile sexism is the act of showing active opposition or hostility towards women, most commonly due to believing women are trying to control men through sexual seduction or feminist ideology. Because women are often the target of crude humor, the female gender are being portrayed as having inferior intelligence, and inferior physical capabilities, and the more extreme the humor, the more females are being put down. This is partially due to the patriarchal society that has been in place since the beginning of time. If sexist jokes are so regularly displayed on television or in the media why do women not always stand up for themselves, and one another? The answer may be truly found in an interesting study by Annie Kochersbergers published in the International Journal of Humor in 2014.

After analyzing many past experiments and theories, Kochersbergers and her team hypothesized that the “degree of identification with a social category predicts amusement with humor that disparages that social category apart from affective dispositions toward the category” (Kochersbergers 444). So, thinking about this in terms of something other than sexism, a study by Middleton (1959) displayed how middle-class African Americans found anti-African-American jokes to be humorous, simply because they did not psychologically identify with that social group. It is very reasonable to say that men probably do not identify with women very strongly for a number of reasons, but the most interesting observation of the study is that women are almost just as likely to find sexist jokes humorous. Most plainly put “identification with women significantly and negatively related to amusement with sexist jokes” (Kochersbergers 455) when studying both men and women’s reactions to sexist jokes and comic strips, meaning that the more individuals dissociate with women, the more amused they are with sexist jokes. This exemplifies one possibility as to why there is an increase in hostile sexism due to disparagement humor being observed. It is not that sexist jokes simply increase a sexist attitude, they also make males and females alike identify with the female gender less and less, which is likely the reasoning why women are not necessarily standing against sexist jokes very often. The studies conducted “demonstrated that identification with women plays a role in predicting women’s and men’s amusement with sexist humor above and beyond the influence of sexist attitudes” (Kochersbergers 455). 

Cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems adds on to the hypothesis in an article on the studies of Kochersbergers and others with “Maybe sexism in the form of stupid jokes is sexism in its most dangerous form, because it subtly changes our behavior in ways difficult to recognize” (Weems). What Weems suggests ties right back into the findings of Kochersbergers and her team. The expanding use of sexist jokes is changing the mindset of people by creating dissociation with females. It is much easier to display an attitude of hostile sexism when people are dissociating themselves from the targeted group. Not only is the dissociation between the genders causing an increase in hostile sexism, but also an increase in stereotyping, which is typically the highlight of sexist humor.

Thomas E. Ford and Mark A. Ferguson from Western Michigan University pose the idea of a “prejudiced norm theory” (Ferguson and Ford 79) that specifies the social-psychological processes by which exposure to disparagement humor uniquely affects tolerance of discrimination against members of groups targeted by the humor. The theory is composed of the idea that disparagement humor increases and amplifies the toleration for any other examples of discrimination towards the targeted group. The most susceptible group to displaying the toleration of discriminatory action towards women are men high in hostile sexism. It is also observed in the study that “exposure to disparagement humor activates stereotypes, which in turn bias social perception.” (Ferguson and Ford 80), which is a direct relation to the study by Kochersbergers by suggesting that there is a bias or dissociation created by sexist humor. The main take away from the thorough study is that the main function of disparagement humor is it creates and reinforces hostile attitudes toward the targeted group (Ferguson and Ford 91). So, disparagement humor in the form of sexist humor creates and reinforces hostile attitudes towards women. This hostile attitude created is better known as hostile sexism. Sexist humor reinforces hostile sexism because it supports prejudice towards women by displaying females in the most stereotypical way, and creates a gender bias that increases toleration of sexist material in society. 

While it is very clear that based off the examples and studies mentioned previously that sexist humor creates hostile sexism in society, there are some studies that suggest that hostile sexism is more of an innate attribute that is amplified by sexist humor. Take for example a study by Mónica Romero-Sánchez that argues how men high in hostile sexism appeared to report their rape proclivity at a much higher rate when exposed to sexist jokes that were presented by a woman, but only when the rape scenarios displayed “a moderate versus a high level of physical violence” (Romero-Sánchez 971). The study is by conducted fairly well with the main issue being that the subjects self-reported their results, and the conclusion is not even necessarily false, but not once in the study does it describe how Romero-Sánchez and her team determined which individuals were considered “high in hostile sexism”. It is almost as if they asked all the subjects if they were high in hostile sexism and they just raised their hands to say yes. It would require a whole separate study, much like the ones performed elegantly by Kochersbergers and Ferguson and Ford, to determine which individuals were high in hostile sexism. There is no definition of hostile sexism, and no evidence that says Romero-Sánchez tested for which individuals were classified as sexist or not. The rape proclivity was reported most by men high in hostile sexism only after they were exposed to sexist humor, as if hostile sexism and all sexism is naturally within people. 

The misleading idea presented by Romero-Sánchez is sadly not the only example of the matter. A study by D. Greenwood and L.M. Isbell in the Psychology of Women Quarterly explains how individuals high in hostile sexism found an audiotaped recording of two people swapping sexist “dumb blonde jokes” as more amusing and less offensive than individuals low in hostile sexism. Once again, not a necessarily an incorrect study, but the problem remains that Greenwood and Isbell do not address why hostile sexism is present in individuals and it is assumed that hostile sexism is innate. There are many examples with the same issue. One in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology by M. Thomae, another in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research by Nalyn Sriwattanakomen and so on. It would be very difficult to present the idea to the world that a baby is born naturally being sexist or racist, or even having a prejudice towards any persons. There is no gene in the human body that programs someone to think “women are inferior to men”. Prejudice of any kind, especially hostile sexism, must be learned and observed for years for someone to come to that very conclusion of “women are inferior to men” and the large amounts of sexist humor available to the public eye is what causes it. Merely presenting sexist humor to someone and saying they react a certain way because they are high in hostile sexism does not cut it, which is why these studies do not accurately explain the cause of hostile sexism in society. People who are high in hostile sexism may find sexist humor more humorous, and that may affect how they live, but sexist humor is the cause of that hostile sexism. 

The increase of sexist humor on display has resulted in the increase of hostile sexism within society. Humor is, and always will be subjective, but it is the job of society to discourage and neglect the use of sexist jokes in the media, on television shows, in stand-up performances, and any other outlets if the flame of hostile sexism is to be extinguished. If society collectively agreed there would be punishment for the use of disparagement humor then the world would be a safer, better place because “Jokes have power—great power. When our intent is to malign, a joke becomes more than an offhand remark; it becomes a weapon” (Weems), and as of right now that weapon is creating stereotypes, racism, a lack of empathy, and hostile sexism in society. 
