Who's Laughing Now? Humor and Community by Regina Barreca

If you can encourage people to laugh with you, you have won them over, however briefly, to your side. You have created an atmosphere of consensus, a moment of agreement when everyone is in sync. Humor functions as a sort of social cement, especially in tense or competitive work situations. Laughing together creates and reinforces a sense of solidarity and intimacy within groups. Humor can effectively create a situation where those individuals who might be on opposite sides of an issue can at least share a moment where their perspectives are aligned.

To see the way wit functions for all of us--men and women alike--is to see a map of our culture: to focus on things we've seen but not necessarily processed or analyzed; explaining what we've sensed but not yet bothered to define. Humor may have been ignored or challenged, but it has always been a secretly potent, delightfully dangerous, wonderfully seductive and, most importantly, powerful way to make a statement, to tell our stories, to make sure everyone's voice is heard.

Humor is essential in an environment where change and adaptation are key factors. Being able to grasp and hold onto a positive sense of humor can help people face risk, take chances, and move towards a better perspective on their situation at work and at home.

Too often, however, humor is paraded out as a great universal, smiles being the unbrella meant to shield us all. Like so many other universals, it's a cheat. Almost every detail of our lives affects the way we create and respond to humor: age, race, ethnic background, and class are all significant factors in the production and reception of humor. Humor can get us into trouble (your friend from Alabama might not enjoy your set of "redneck" jokes; your Italian sister-in-law might not appreciate Mafia jokes) but that usually happens when humor is being used as a form of aggression or as a way to define boundaries.

In other words, while "We" can laugh at jokes made by "Us" about "Us," we might deeply resent it if "They" tell the same story about "Us." It would seem more than self-evident, then, that gender would be as great an issue for the discussion of humor as any of these other factors, but gender remains one of the last issues to be addressed. While it would be regarded as outrageous to tell a racist joke to a person of color, for example, many men rarely hesitate to tell a sexist joke to a woman. Such story-tellers then accuse women of being humorless if they do not laugh. Funny, isn't it?

Men and women will all feel easier once we understand how joking functions--and how it functions differently for men and women. Women are learning that the ways they use their humor in the living room and the board room--even the bedroom--can work to their advantage. Fewer women are willing to accept the old position of the passive receptor of another's wit: spending your life as an adult listening to other people make jokes is the equivalent of spending your childhood watching other kids play. Women and men are also learning that many of the situations that seem new in today's workplace--such as all the discussions of sexual harassment--are not in fact products of the last twenty years. Women, as well as men, have had a rich history of being able to deal with the world through humor, and from them we can learn a great deal. Life is rich with possibilities for laughter.