Don’t have the balls to “say it”, have the tongue!!

I always show a poker face to people laughing till their belly aches on “stupid” Man vs. Woman jokes. I just don’t understand the humorous pleasure they gain and when someone gets offended the easiest escapism is to say “enjoy the humour irrespective of the gender”, exactly my point why can’t we have humour which is not gender based or sexist. How dry would the humour industry go if sexist jokes are not a part of it? I can recall the applause and hooting from “comedy with Kapil” sexist jokes and how women themselves do not realize the way they are ridiculed rather they have internalised patriarchy so deep and are in acceptance with such jokes. There is another complain from men as to how it has become so difficult to open their mouths in the society for they never know when can they be called sexist or they might have to face insult slapped across their faces and that why do women have to whine about a little joke and create a scene. Let’s take a recent example of how the crowd responded to Palash Sen’s (a singer from the band Euphoria) fizzled out attempt to stand up comedy, hurling out jokes like how he could empathise with IIT men having no “good looking  girls” on campus. In his clarification- He says to the TOI that his sole agenda was to promote women to make good career just “like men do”. A lot of controversy has been going on as to what he said and what the women at the concert resented, but the word is out; such remarks or jokes are not tolerated.

Another gag for misogynists is, as to how women won’t calm down till they are” equal to men”. The cunt is metaphoric to coward and the dick is metaphoric to heinous and you have to have balls to have courage and guts. Patriarchy is so clichéd around us that we don’t realize its impact on our day to day lives. Words, language and humour have a lot of power to drive your thoughts which then manifest in the society that we live in. If you are wicked and self absorbed you don’t have to be a dick, you could be a cunt too and you don’t need balls to stand up for yourself you just do it. As it is said- “What goes around comes around” and so does misogyny in forms unnoticed and never pondered upon. Humour is no problem, actually it is all about humour, how you take life for it is yours to control.

———— About the Author: This article has been contributed by Aqsa Zaidi, our intern. Aqsa is a Botany Hons. Student from Hindu College, Delhi University. She feels it’s her constant struggle and effort to understand and redefine independence and equality in its purest form through her writing . Believing in women and youth empowerment, Aqsa wants to induct the same in her readers.