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From: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d,net.women
Subject: Re: JAP jokes
Message-ID: <529@mtxinu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Feb-86 20:39:12 EST
Article-I.D.: mtxinu.529
Posted: Wed Feb 19 20:39:12 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Feb-86 05:36:35 EST
References: <11871@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1037@burl.UUCP>
Reply-To: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley, CA
Lines: 29
Keywords: Jewish, American, Princess
Xref: linus net.jokes.d:1317 net.women:8765

> Gene Ward Smith:
>>  A Berkeley professor who studied thousands of Jewish American Princess
>>jokes over the past five years has concluded that such jokes are an attack
>>on women and feminism.

Curtis Jackson:
>Hmmmm, that's odd.  I love JAP jokes, but the various women I tell them
>to invariably love them even more. ...
>
>That is *my* uneducated but well-researched opinion on why both men and
>women enjoy JAP jokes -- they are laughing at something that they would
>sooner die than be like, yet there are tendencies toward most JAP traits
>(as told in the jokes) in every one of us -- yielding one of (if not the)
>most important facet of successful humor:  the ability of the audience
>to empathize somewhat with the butt of the joke.

It seems to me that you're actually making the point above, even though
that doesn't appear to be what you intend.  I suspect that the women
you describe are laughing at tendencies that they see in themselves
that they would like to *deny*.  Just because you find women laughing
at sexist jokes doesn't mean that they (the jokes and the women) aren't
sexist.  Some of the most anti-X jokes I've ever heard have been told
by Xs.  For *all* X (that tell jokes).

-- 
Ed Gould                    mt Xinu, 2910 Seventh St., Berkeley, CA  94710  USA
{ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed   +1 415 644 0146

"A man of quality is not threatened by a woman of equality."