Take Our Angst--Please: Feminism Lightens Up

Q: How many feminists does it take to put in a light bulb?

A: That really isn’t very funny.

That really isn’t very funny. The joke is on the dour reputation of feminists, but who says they don’t have a sense of humor?

“For as long as I can remember, the stereotype of feminists has been as a Brunhilda, the humorless battle ax or the very serious schoolmarm type,” Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority political action group, said in a recent interview.

“When you’re out of power and begging others to do the right thing by you, it’s easy to be intense and in a position where it’s hard to crack a smile, especially when you’re the brunt of the joke.”

But these days, funny feminist is no longer viewed as an oxymoron.

“As women gain more power,” Smeal said, “it’s easy to laugh when you feel empowered enough that you can ridicule those who are keeping you in your place.”

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Outside the act itself, I think sex is a lot harder for men than for women. If a man wants a woman to have sex with him, he’s got to ask her out, wine her, dine her, drug her up. . . . But if a woman wants a man to have sex with her, she just has to ask for a promotion. --Robin Greenspan

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Who knew?

When Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas--and the rest of the country--were squaring off over pretty serious matters, who knew that the fire lit under feminists would make them, well, funnier?

Farewell, mother-in-law jokes, women driver jokes and dumb blonde jokes. Hello, women-can-be-funny-even-if-they’re - strong jokes and sometimes-men-are-stupid jokes.

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Q: Why are all dumb blonde jokes one-liners?

A: So men can understand them. --Anonymous

It’s a signpost of sorts that the 7-year-old Feminist Majority recently hosted its first comedy benefit and auction, “Choose to Laugh.” The group raised $70,000 for its National Clinic Defense Project, which protects abortion clinics against attack -- not a laughing matter.

The organizers put together a little feminist joke book, appropriately dubbed “Who Says Feminists Don’t Have a Sense of Humor?” And six comics--including “Seinfeld” writer Carol Leifer and former “Saturday Night Live” regular Nora Dunn--diverted the crowd at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood, which was chock-full o’ feminists.

All the performers were women.

All were feminists.

But none considered themselves feminist comics.

“Any time you label what you do, you risk losing work,” Carol Ann Leif, the evening’s emcee, said in an interview. “And the object of comedy is to make people laugh. If you make people think, that’s great. But I’m not writing my jokes because I’m a feminist. I write my jokes because I think they’re funny.”

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Q: Why is psychoanalysis a lot quicker for men than for women?

A: When it’s time to go back to his childhood, he’s already there. -- Anonymous

What’s funny to feminists?

“I don’t do ‘I’m-so-stupid-I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing’ jokes,” Carol Siskind said before her performance. “I’m not doing self-deprecating stuff to get a laugh. And I’m not hard on men, I don’t think. Part of it has to be about the Angst of what it’s like to be alive, but I don’t think you have to be less than who you are.”

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It’s silly for women to go to male gynecologists. It’s like going to an auto mechanic who’s never even owned his own car. --Carrie Snow

To Nora Dunn, feminist humor sometimes means making fun of feminism--”the things about it that go too far, that are too much on the edge.”

Dunn used to do a character named Norma who had written a book called “Woman Good, Men Bad.” Thanks to Norma, Dunn had her way with “the victim-oriented type of feminist where a woman isn’t always responsible for what she does, and it’s always because a man pushed her too hard.”

Dunn may gently lampoon some of her more intense sisters, but she felt strongly enough about principles to boycott the May, 1990, installment of “Saturday Night Live” that starred feminist foil Andrew Dice Clay. Dunn thinks it’s ironic that she has been branded an enemy of feminism, a sling prompted by her characters, who are grounded, if that’s the word, in dysfunctional humor with a heart.

“When I was in Seattle, I had a reviewer call my show misogynistic because I didn’t have any women that were successful in my (stage) show,” she said. “I hate those kinds of stupid rules.”

In fact, Dunn believes that her dysfunctional characters can be feminists, too; when she was on “Saturday Night Live,” she was fiercely protective of the lounge-singing Sweeney Sisters, determined to keep them on an empowered, if askew, path.

“We didn’t let any of the guys touch them or write for them because their inclination was to humiliate them,” Dunn said backstage. “They were successful in their own minds. They thought they were great singers, and we actually believed we were good singers when we were singing. So that, to me, is a feminist portrayal because you’re portraying a woman with an ego, and she’s not going to get killed and she’s not victimized by anybody.’

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Q: Why is it a good thing that there are female astronauts?

A: When the crew gets lost in space, at least the woman will ask for directions. --Anonymous

In the middle of her performance, Judy Toll announces that everyone’s in for “a little wacky, fun male-bashing.”

Then out comes Andrea Dice Clay, who’s as aggressively raunchy as her namesake. Toll’s unlikely, cigarette-sucking twist on femininity has feminists roaring.

“It puts down women being treated as less than men, and it tries to get that power back, so you could view it as feminist comedy,” she said later.

But Toll said sometimes feminism and anger get confused when it comes to humor.

“Feminists could get a reputation for being angry feminists if they come from an angry place,” she said. “But not all feminists are angry, and not all angry comics are feminists. On the other side, are the ‘women-can’t-get-a-man’ comics, self-deprecating, which is what I do I think, but not in the most traditional way.”

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To be a woman in the ‘90s, sometimes I feel like a super-hero. I try to be “Independent Woman” even though, deep down, I want to be “Slut Girl.” . . . It doesn’t matter because, either way, I keep running into my archrival, “Platonic Man.” --Carol Ann Leif

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In Smeal’s view, funny feminism is partly a numbers game.

“For a long time, comedy really was left to men. The stand-up comedians were the Jack Bennys and the George Burnses. Now you turn on comedy on cable and you’re as likely to see a woman. One of the reasons that we as a feminist group decided to do a comedy hour is our constituency wanted one.”

But just because it’s fun, Smeal said, don’t think that funny feminism isn’t good for you, too.

“Feminist humor raises consciousness. And the reason it’s funny is because it stands something on its head. Goodness knows you’ve got to have a sense of humor if you do feminism full-time, I tell you. There’s no other way to survive.”