Women and Humor in the 21st Century

Recently we have been reading some articles written by 18th-19th century women. Many of these pieces formulate humor through subtle jabs at convention or by portraying common female stereotypes. However, such humor has not been getting a strong response in class or an immensely humorous reaction. I believe that the problem is not that these women are not humorous or that people are not understanding the content but that much of the content is out of place in our current age.

Several hundred years ago, women were not allowed to be as outwardly rebellious as men in their humor as well as lifestyle. Since much of humor can be considered radical rebellion (certainly not all), women in such time periods may have been at a disadvantage. Therefore they had to make quieter remarks and pass much of their humor under the radar.

While I am sure that these authors were popular in their time, seeing as they have remained in the canon, such approaches to humor do not stand out to current day audiences, especially the younger crowd. When I think of the prominent female comediennes which are popular today, several of them have loud and acerbic routines which have an "in-your-face" attitude. Performers such as Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli and Margaret Cho have very crude routines and have caught the attention of the public eye. One could even argue that these women have taken an unladylike and thus more masculine approach to humor. Do I think that women need to behave more like men to be funny? Of course not. Is such an approach easier to get the attention of large audiences? Possibly.

In addition, I think that people these days are more accustomed to louder humor in general. Inappropriate material just seems to get more attention these days because the shock factor interests people. Such topics would never fly back in the 18th-19th centuries for a multitude of reasons.