Women's Laughter: It's No Joke

Laughter is a social behavior that communicates many things, from flirting to discomfort to joy, and in the case of women, has long drawn criticism and judgement. Learn more about why we laugh and the penalization, fear-mongering and feminist reclamation of women's laughter in this episode. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told you production of iHeart Radio. So before
we get into this, one very quick content warning where
you're gonna have some brief discussion of rape culture and
mental health. Nothing to you in depth, but just to

(00:26):
put that out there. And today we are talking about
laughter and the history of women laughing, the judgments around
women laughing, the feminist reclaiming of women laughing, and we're
also going to briefly touch on why we laugh and
what it could signal with all of that. Samantha, how
do you feel about your laugh? Oh? I hate it? Yeah, yeah,

(00:50):
my laugh gets it's really loud, so it's not super
loud that you can pick it out. But if it's
a dead silent moment, I don't just giggle. I do
a yelp first, and then it goes into whatever the
rest of the thing is. If I'm having one of
those moments where I'm having an uncontrollable laughter, I definitely

(01:11):
snort and I wease because I can't I can't breathe.
That's the level I am. So I hate hearing myself laugh.
And I've tried one time to really cultivate into being
like a girly cute laugh. I couldn't do. It, just
didn't happen. I was like, well, I am who I am?
So that there it is? What about you? Yeah? I also,

(01:37):
I will say I have mixed feelings about my laugh
because I feel like I don't have a very feminine
laugh either. But then that now that I'm older and
I think about that, I'm like, well, okay, what does
that say. We are going to talk about that in
a minute. However, I will say a lot of people

(01:59):
at our office are very complimentary of my laugh, and
it's very sweet of them, and it's I'm still very
self conscious of it, because I guess either way, when
you draw attention to something, it makes it put you
in your head about it. And this is one of
those episodes that as we talk about it, I'm very
so conscious as you laugh. Yes, I know, I know.

(02:21):
And that's one of the things we're going to talk about,
is like all these different reasons that we do laugh.
And I'm somebody that I laugh a lot. I laugh
a lot, and I think for anyone listening that is
no surprise. So my nicknames are Giggles, gigs, and bright
side because I laughed so much. But who calls you

(02:42):
these names? Because I've never heard this. I have other
friend anyone to say this to you, So just curious.
I have other friends, Amantha, but yes, you know you haven't. No,
you um and Samantha. You know my dungeons and Jagon's

(03:05):
character's name, one of them, her name is Her name
is gigs on Tank and you were very suspicious of
this name with that person tried to call me on
sky Paul was like, nope, I will not take your
dick pics. It was just me. It was just me.

(03:26):
But yeah, I laugh easily for all sorts of reasons.
My mom used to joke my giggle box would get
turned over because I would just laugh and laugh and laughing.
I couldn't stop laughing. And this is also one of
the things I get critiqued on the most as a host,
and especially when I was a new host, I'd get
messages like, no one could take you seriously. You sound
like a little girl at a slumber party who's snucking

(03:47):
to her dad's like her cabinet. I remember that one
very well. A lot of specific like why did you
need to go all of those words? That was unnecessary, right, Yes,
I think it was. Yeah, a lot of really condescending
sexist language like that, especially like being a little girl
or something. Yeah. And nowadays I get those messages far

(04:08):
less because I feel like those people have left, those
mostly dudes, to be honest, have left. But I still
get really insecure about it anytime you do again, anytime
you do an episode like this, uh filler language is
another one where you could become more and more aware
of it, and it gets more and more like you
get more and more judgmental about it about how much
you do something. And I do want to emphasize every

(04:30):
time we do episodes like this, it's not some weird,
passive aggressive message to you, the lovely listeners, because you
are genuinely lovely. Um. And I honestly do get if
people laugh too much and that annoys you. Those always
you can just disengage. You don't have to listen to
something you don't want to drop to comment on it. Um.
But it does turn out there is a long history

(04:54):
of censoring and judging women's laughter. Actually really fascinating. I'm
very excited to talk about it. I will say the
same is true with tears when it comes to women.
I was thinking about this and just any kind of
emotion show. There's a lot of judgment around it. If
you're having too much fun, then you're annoying. If you're
too sad about it, then you are you just can't

(05:17):
handle it too sensitive, exactly exactly. Both of them are
dismissed as you were being essentially a little girl, right, yeah, yeah, um,
But speaking of I just told you this story, you did.
I once was scalded at Universal Theme Parks in Orlando

(05:37):
for laughing too much by a fellow dressed as an elf.
I was. I've never forgotten it. It's really funny now
definitely dressed me down in front of a whole crowd
of people, right, that's the whole crew of you, right,
just having a good old time. And he just went
off to after all of y'all, Yeah he did. We're

(06:00):
laughing too much, and I it's not like we were
being drunk fools or anything. We just we're laughing and
having fun. Too much fun. How dare you add an
amusement park too much? Amusement? Too much? So I did
want to briefly touch on why we laugh, which, as

(06:21):
we discussed in the Why We Dream episode. It's still
kind of we're not totally sure, but as early as
three months old, babies, do you start laughing. There are
a couple of reasons that women and all of us laugh,
although there are some that are unique to women, which
we're going to touch on. To communicate camaraderie, connection, cooperation, joy, humor, sadness.

(06:43):
In response to an awkward or painful moment, people are
thirty times more likely to laugh in a group, which
demonstrates the social nature of it, which scientists think it's
a it's a big social thing of like communicating, right,
something about how you feel or how you vibe within
the group. I feel guess very contagious too. Oh yeah,
I mean we we've talked about that a little bit

(07:05):
when we were talking about Slumper parties and I was
saying that that game I would play, tell me ha ha.
The whole point was once somebody actually started laughing, you
would all start laughing. Yes, I think that's a big
part of like TikTok. Again, I'm talking about TikTok, but
a lot of the videos that I've seen has been
something like contagious laughter or something along those lines. And

(07:28):
I will say, little baby giggles that are truly enjoying
life get vigo and sometimes uh for sure, but yeah,
I mean it's hard not to at least smile if
somebody's really truly expressing joy, this joy just say so.
Laughter is believed to have potential health benefits, and I

(07:49):
think we've all kind of heard this, including as a
stress reliever, which is one reason for things like laugh yoga.
And I was thinking about this too because I was like,
my neighbor does crying yoga, but I'm not harder do
the laughing yoga, should ask The research suggests that people
who laugh more have a lower risk of cardiovascular illness.

(08:11):
It's interesting, yeah, and I think that goes in line
with a lot of things we've talked about where stress
does cause health issues. So if laughter is believed to
reduce stress, then it makes sense they would have at
least somewhat of an impact, maybe not a huge impact
on these other things. Recent studies have found that across

(08:31):
cultures and continents, people can pick up on fake laughter. Um.
These studies also found that fake laughter can be useful
in terms of continuing or facilitating conversation, so it's not
necessarily always a bad thing. Surveys have also found that
women prefer telling jokes to smaller groups of people, and
even more so small groups of women as compared to men,
who prefer bigger crowds to tell their jokes, and many

(08:54):
speculate this might be at least part of the reason
the women have no sense of humor thing got started
because men don't see women joke is often because they
prefer to tell jokes in smaller groups and more likely
to women, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, yes, um,
And then we did want to talk about the use
of laughter in flirting and also it's roll in rape culture.

(09:19):
So plenty of recent studies caught the public's attention claiming
that yes, humor is what women really want in men,
I love funny man, and yes this is heteronormative certainly.
In researching this, most of the top results were things
like what does it mean when a woman laughs? How
to tell if a woman is fake laughing? And one
of the reasons this is believed to be the case

(09:40):
is that in the case you will have fun with
this person, I will say I think we're about to
get into it. I had a very long sexist conversation,
meaning like he was being sexist now almost plushed him
in the face. Uh. Conversation with a dude about how
he knows that a girl likes him because he will

(10:00):
laugh at his jokes and appreciate what he says, and
to the point that I'm like, he made it seem
that women only laugh because of these reasons and all
women fake it and I had to look at them like, no,
that's not well, that's I think I made the conversation. Well,
that's more about you and how you're not funny and

(10:22):
you know this, so that is your radar and maybe
you should work on your jokes and your personality. Yeah,
and we got into it. Yeah, I can see that,
but it reminds me off when we were talking about
the whole women can't have an orgasm thing, where it's like,
I think this might say more about you, but that

(10:45):
is that is a very we hear that a lot, right,
is you know women are going to laugh harder at
jokes that aren't funny from me, to show interest just
makes sense. But if what you're saying is I don't
have to be funny, it doesn't matter. It might be
a slightly different thing. Also, it may come to the

(11:06):
point and I have done this, and I'm sure when
we talk about it more, we would say I have
fake laughed it hopes to avoid a confrontation from you,
And so I'm just gonna pretend like I'm amused by
you and move on and really try to get away.
But I'm gonna be like, that's so funny, i gotta
do a thing over there. Yeah. Yeah, I think I've
told this story before. But one time I was in

(11:27):
college and somebody I was at a bar and somebody
grabbed my ass and I turned and laughed, and I
like backed the wave. I was laughing, and I like,
I look back on it now and I'm so ashamed.
But I'm also like, what else was I going to do? Right,
I'm surprised the ones that defends mechanism and be like okay,
but oh god, okay. Yeah. But the I think it

(11:50):
was within the past two years that study came out
and said, you know, women, I think it might have
been specific to the UK, but it was very Uh.
It caught a lot of headlines everywhere where. He's like, women,
funny nous is the most important trade or the most
attractive trait or whatever, And they do think that's because
it's a signal that you can have fun with someone,
you can out laugh with someone. Um as always with

(12:11):
those studies, though it's you know, social things like that
are hard to quantify. For sure. I like laughing with
a person, for sure. That's also true after this, Yes,

(12:34):
many of learning articles advised women how and when to laugh?
Do you attract men? And yes, this how to laugh?
I was thinking about this. If you look at words
used to describe men's laughter, you'll see a lot of
words like boisterous or wow or like you know, from
the gut or from the stomach, while for women it's
a lot of times whords like tittering, bell like giggling,

(12:56):
a lot smaller and like quote dainties ounds. And that
kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier,
where I've got a bunch of different laughs, but I'm
generally a pretty loud laugher as well, and for a
while I did feel like I needed to contain it
and quiet it down and control it more and be
more quote lady like with my laughter, which is interesting

(13:19):
but okay. Conversely, the male fear of being rejected and
even laughed at by women is something that comes up
a lot in conversations around rape culture, and this is
not a new thing. Ma B. Phelps testified in a
New Haven divorce case quote, she laughed at her husband
and he knocked her senseless. In a man allegedly blew

(13:43):
himself up with dynamite after a woman refused his proposal
marriage laughing at him. The Baltimore Son wrote the man
quote had a dynamite bomb with him and threatened that
if the woman refused him, he would blow himself to pieces.
She laughed at him, and he went to the stone
yard a block distant and killed himself. In nineteen o three,

(14:04):
Alice Hindegar was murdered quote with a monkey wrinch because
she laughed at a man when he pressed her to
marry him. I think that's more to say about men
and fragile egos more so than the laughter. But yeah,
I've definitely seen where for women, You're correct, it is
either seen as being really condestantingly like giggling like a
little girl, or being seen as a witch chickling and

(14:28):
or you know, trying to bully someone and or demoralize someone.
It's one or the other, it seems, it seems so.
In nineteen o five, Virginia Woolf wrote about women's laughter
quote light lightning. It shrivels them up and leaves the
bones bear. And of course Margaret at what's famous quote,
men are afraid that women will laugh at them, and
women are afraid men will kill them, which again yes, uh.

(14:51):
Nancy Dowds survey the men in question found that women
report their greatest fear is rape and murder, while men's
greatest fear is being laughed at. And I've heard this
a lot actually, And then Helen Rowland wrote, a man
will forgive his wife for committing robbery or murder or
breaking the tin commitments, yet threatened to leave her for
laughing at the wrong moment. Yeah, and it is. You

(15:14):
can see, like I think of seeing many things recently,
even where if a woman laughs in this defense, then
they are like, first of all, what are you laughing at?
And then somehow abused Yes, yes, um. And we're gonna
get into this more in a minute. But it's very
different how we judge women and men historically based on

(15:36):
laughing at the wrong moment. And I, you know, we
just had Halloween and I just watched practical magic, and
that's why Jimmy hit Dilly in Practical Magic because she
laughed at him about a doughnut. It's like, oh, the
research and true life coming together. I will say, I'm

(15:57):
now thinking about it. I knew the one that I
could win an argument with my brother was to laugh
at him really and it would anger him to no
end and I would just walk away. We're ready something
to bounce on me. Don't real fights Like it wasn't.
It was right at each other. But like that's I
remember that as thinking like, this is almost going to

(16:19):
bother him. Here we go. Yeah, it has been, and
it's very effective as a tool defiance, and we're going
to get into that more too. Um. But I've definitely
had that thought as well. If I get in a
bigger argument and I'm like, you know, really burn this
person up if I start laughing. They're saying, right, yeah,
And that's part of the as we've discussed before, using

(16:40):
comedy as this sort of political satire and weapon in
that manner. And that's one of the things which is
a good segue into what we're talking about next, which
is trauma and laughing in the face of like something
that's painful or dark for me. Is easier to handle,
especially news if it's presented in the kind of a

(17:01):
satirical or funny way, just because it's so often is
pretty grim. Pretty grim. But yeah, as we discussed in
our Trauma mini series, laughter is sometimes utilized as a
coping mechanism in the face of trauma and grief. I
know it's definitely a coping mechanism for me. There wasn't
as much information as I thought there would be out

(17:23):
there on this, but I did find some articles that said, um,
laughter promotes resilience in the face of stress and illness.
It is something that you know, historically people have used
to almost defiantly, to reclaim joy in the face of
all these horrible circumstances. And I mean, when I think
about it as someone who does laugh a lot, like one,

(17:43):
that's sort of my that's how I am. And two
it is a way of being like, Okay, I can
I can still find something to laugh at, or it
can still be in what for me is normal and
for me laughing is pretty normal. But it's also like
I just like I've said a lot, I feel a
lot of pressure and I've been socialized a lot to

(18:03):
make people happy and to kind of be that person
that shears people up, and that's hard to let go,
even in the face of right or maybe maybe even
especially in the face of when you're trying to hold
on to something of of like hard things of grief
and trauma and you're just trying to find like something
from your quote, like I like to call it the

(18:24):
before and after of mind, before of what who I
felt like I was then and and then and all
this stuff with trauma, and you feel like all your
foundation is shaken, and I would just try to grab
onto these like pieces and deal with it that way.
And we've talked about this previously and now that this

(18:45):
is an actual scientific statement, but I know this is
a very to me as a person on the outside
seemingly middle child syndrome to keep the piece, to keep
the happiness, and you are a meddle child, So like
that none of that is too surprising, a but thin
like another part of that when you're talking about your
own trauma and and the fact that you laugh at
your response, um, and I do too. I do too.

(19:07):
I actually make sarcastic jokes, which we're gonna get into
just a second. But the fact that many people respond
when they specifically are talking about their own trauma, which
is what we were talking about it. When this episode,
we were like, let's do this episode because I was
very angry because we did get a critique on one
of our reviews, because I keep making the stupid mistake
of looking at the reviews. Most of them are so
kind and so beautiful and thank you so much. But

(19:29):
the few that come in and said negative, I'm like,
why do you even take the time, Like, just go
ahead with the one star and move on. I don't care.
None of the things that you're critiquing us for we
can change. I can't change this about myself. Sorry. If
any can't change this about herself. Sorry. But one of
those was about, like you are laughing doing serious stuff.
You'll get get over this is so childish type of thing,

(19:50):
and we, hey, we've already told you at the very beginning,
this is how we respond. We probably said it in
that episode. Whatever episode you're responding to, because we talked
about a lot of traumatic things us be will be.
You're also not laughing at other people's trauma. You're literally
talking about your own experiences, and your response is to
giggle to try to handle it. And just try to maintain.

(20:13):
And again, I think one of the things that infuriate
me in any of those comments or any of these levels,
is this is what helped us survive. Why would you
come in here and try to take that away when
obviously that is a strength for us. You may not
see it for that way, You may not see it
for yourself, and you may be able to handle it
on a whole different level. I don't know. But if

(20:35):
it's not hurting you, it's not hurting us, and it's
something that can keep us on a steady way without
completely going overboard in whatever route. Uh, And that could
be unhealthy. Why is it bothering you? Why is it
bothering you? And I think that just angers me too
so much that we have to criticize other people's handling
a trauma when it's not unhealthy. Yeah, And I mean

(21:00):
we talked, We did talk about that a lot, especially
when we talked about grief as well, and how people
feel like grief should look a certain way and if
it doesn't look that way, then you're not you're not
grieving enough for you're grieving too much, You're grieving the
wrong way. And I think you know, as was pretty
much everything we talked about. It's hard to unpack and

(21:23):
untangle all of the social factors that go into why
you do a certain thing. I think that for I
imagine a lot of women who use laughter as a
coping mechanism of it for anybody, but for women, there's also,
like I'm sure I know you've experienced this as well.
When you do open up and you share something that's
really dark and really painful with somebody, it's clear they

(21:46):
are really uncomfortable, and then you say something funny or
something to lighten the mood because it's just silent and
it's obvious the other person doesn't know what to say,
and I don't fault them for that, Like sometimes there's
nothing to say, but you do. I'm somebody who's also
struggles with silence a loft time. So if it's like,

(22:08):
go silent, somebody's miserable, are like, oh wow, they didn't. Okay,
well let's flash then let's make this better. It's like
what you're I mean, in a much lighter way. It's
like when you're on an awkward day and you're like,
this is awkward. Let's laugh about it because it's really awkward, right,
I mean that is exactly so when we talk about
social work, I would talk about the fact, hey, you

(22:30):
don't want to hang out with a lot of social
workers if you do, if you're really sensitive and don't
have a dark sense of humor, because we are twisted,
like immediately this is the way we cope and we
have to joke about that. Is that are really inappropriate
and really like, yes, we outside of that rail, we're like,
this is really bad, we shouldn't do this. But if

(22:51):
we didn't, I think we would constantly be on like
a way of crashing and almost wanted to like, you know,
just go to sleep forever because because it is so
dark and it gets so dark, and because it weighs
on you so heavily, like there's nothing to do but
to make an obvious statement maybe inappropriate to those who
hopefully would understand, and just trying to move on because

(23:12):
it is so dark and so twisted that you can't.
If you can't laugh about it for just a minute,
then there's a whole Even though in your mind you're like,
we have to do all of these things, but I
need a minute. I need a break from the depth
and the darkness of this. Really really dark, really really
heavy situation to being able to be like, well, at
least sometime So and so didn't do this part too,

(23:34):
Like that's the caveat to it. And even though on
the outside they're like, holy crap, what why would you
do that, it's kind of like, well, because this is
how we survive and again when we're on in our
own trauma, whether it's to fill the silence, whether it's
to make other people comfortable, because as you don't know
what else to do, it is kind of the same things,

(23:54):
like people will get really uncomfortable with race stuff, and
instead of accepting the fact, oh you're racist, in my as,
it was like, you don't know how to act around
brown people. So this is what you're doing. I would
make jokes about myself in a manner I really shouldn't
have how to do that, but it's awkward that I
don't know what else to do but to make you
laugh and make myself laugh and hope this makes it better,

(24:15):
although it just spends into your racism and prejudice and
stereotypical ideas of me. So yeah, yeah, And I mean
that's a good point to make, kind of going back
to what you're saying a little bit earlier is you know,
we're laughing at our own trauma, are too, perhaps make
other people more comfortable with our own trauma. But that's

(24:38):
different than like making jokes you have no right to
be making right, right, very very very different or laughing
like I did read and this is complicated, and I
don't want to go into it now, but I will
mention it. I did read a couple of articles about
basically people grieving, but on the opposite ends of something
like perhaps somebody their son had killed somebody else's child

(25:01):
in a drunk driving accident and the mother of the
child that's i'd laughing at the funeral or something like.
That's a bit different than what we're discussing, right, I suppose,
like I understand it, but that's that's not the same
as what we're just going right now. And again, that's
what we were talking about, is that when it comes
to us processing our own trauma, and if it's not

(25:26):
to the point that it is hurting someone else. So
when I say processing on trauma, those who delve into
alcohol or go into some type of addictive personality trait
in our habit, that's a whole different conversation. I'm not
saying we encouraged that, but when we're talking about laughing
to process our own trauma, that's the whole again. How
is this hurting you? Why are you needing to speak

(25:48):
on it? And also why are you judging our own trauma?
Like that's a double leming on that in itself. Yeah,
and I do think it's interesting in something we've talked
about before, But you're in a public sphere, some of
those things get amplified because you're supposed to be even
if you're doing serious topics, you are supposed to be

(26:10):
entertaining in some way, um while also getting across education,
Asian occasional content. And when you're talking about something serious,
that can be really tricky, and especially if you do
have your own trauma in your way, you act your
own trauma on top of that. Um. And that's not
to say there's been plenty of episodes where I feel
like there was hardly any laughter involved, but right, you know,

(26:32):
when when there's also that level of it, if you're like, oh,
this is too sad, no one's gonna listen to it
because all it is is sad. I've got to do something.
It's usually my episodes of like, so I want to
talk about this really bad thing, let's go, And I'm
sorry everybody starts like sitting in the corner of the dark. Yeah,
And I think that's a a balance that is it's

(26:54):
really difficult to pull off. But I do like going
back to what I said where it's easier for me
to handle darker topics if there is some humor in there, right,
And I don't think that's wrong or bad. Um. I
think there's a way to do it, in a way
not to do it, but I think it makes sense
that you need almost like a palate cleanser or something

(27:14):
to get stopped your heart from like just getting so
so sad and heavy that you don't want to take
in any more information, right, Yeah, which was all a
pandemic yazz either it is. We have so many examples
of it just here in this episode. I will say
one of my triggers actually is loud mail laughing. That's

(27:36):
something I've had to work with, but like really loud
that can get me interesting. There's a lot of triggers
like that. So again, dark humor has been shown to
improve mental health among those who participate in stressful jobs
like nursing and social work, and I tell you, we

(27:58):
lived off of dark jokes to the point that I
couldn't be around normal people because I realized I cannot
be socializing with people who do not understand what this is.
Because when I make a comment about a case that
I'm going through and they gave me the blank stare

(28:18):
of horrified looks, and I'm like, oh, y'all don't know
anything about the okay, cool, I'm just I'm gonna sit
in the corner. Because yes, it takes. It's especially when
you have a job that you really delve into and
it impacts other people. So social services, nursing, teaching, it's
really hard not to see some type of or at

(28:40):
least having to cause inside jokes. I guess I having
to have inside jokes or such, which again not always
appropriate and I'm not And if it's racial any of that,
that's not what we're talking about at all. We're talking
about human drama, human trauma, human darkness, that's what we're

(29:00):
talking about. It definitely, yeah, it definitely helps you just
to be able to wake up the next day. That's
where it gets down to. And there's a commanderate to that. Yeah,
that you have to have. Yeah. Yeah, and I think
I know with my nursing friends, I've heard a lot
about that of being during this pandemic and being a
stress reliever. But they've noticed like their humor has gotten

(29:22):
significantly darker during all of this. Yeah, I think we had.
I had a moment when I was working in CPS
investigating child abuse. I had several nursing friends and we
would just share war stories, talk about what was worse
to make ourselves feel better that their their job was
worse than our job. It was not ready. Yeah, yeah,

(29:47):
I can imagine. Speaking of We did briefly want to
touch on the film Joker with Joaquin Phoenix, just because
we were talking about the different perceptions people have of
men and women laughing when it comes to things like
trauma and that. You know that movie, And we're gonna
get circle back to this. But I know there's like

(30:08):
an able ism narrative there, because if you haven't seen it,
it's sort of a disorder he has right that he's
he laughs, So yeah, it's called studo Bulbera effect or
p b A, and that's what he was dealing with. Yeah,
And I mean laughter is frequently a tool writers do
use in things things like that too indicate like like

(30:35):
villainous behavior. And then this one's got like also the
able ism there, this is actually something he's dealing with.
But just the way people reacted to that in that
movie versus us, you know, talking about our own trauma

(30:56):
just interesting. From what I remember from the movie, stress
caused him to laugh, and so people didn't understand what
was happening because I know, like stress, Like for me,
we talked about stress causes maybe really sleepy. Um, so
I guess it's similar to that effect. Yeah, mhm, yeah.
I mean obviously I don't want to be compared to

(31:21):
the joker necessarily, but um, just yeah, I mean, we
it's I guess we know that laughter is a response
to stress and trauma. It does make people uncomfortable sometimes,
they think, but it seems that the reaction you get
when it's women is much more like dismissive. I guess,

(31:44):
either dismissive if it's trauma, or like angry if it's
related to dating. Yeah. Just you know, I feel like
we understand that this is a thing, but we're judging
people for it, and we're judging differently based on gender,

(32:06):
which is interesting. So we did want to go into
a history of women laughing, because, as we mentioned in
the in show, there's been a long history of judging

(32:28):
women's laughter and sometimes even criminalizing it. In ancient Greece,
Aristotle ward against the pitfalls of laughter, writing quote, most
people enjoy amusement and jesting more than they should adjust
as a kind of mockery, and law givers forbid some
kinds of mockery. Perhaps they ought to have forbidden some
kinds of jesting. God seems to be on the same page.

(32:49):
In the Old Testament, laughing at God was not at
all tolerated, and even when God laughs, it's an act
of hostility and fury, not a good thing at all. Um.
There's one is where a group of boys laugh had
a profit. So God six two she bears on them
and kills like almost all of them. I believe right.
They're making fun of the profit, though, that's a little different.

(33:10):
And then throwing things and taunting him and trying to
hurt him. So that's a little bit different than just
laughing at just saying so. During the Middle Ages, women's
laughter was viewed as unruly course and something associated with
the body and not at all lady like, as in fact,
the whole te covering of the mouth is what you

(33:30):
would often see represented um. Women were advised not to laugh,
that it was uncouth, despite that female characters and literature
ranging from to the sixth century often engaged in laughter,
and Lisa Perfetti's work Women and Laughter in Medieval comic Literature,
she argues that laughter was a way to talk back

(33:51):
to the views around women at the time. That jokes
and humor around women which made women laugh also illustrated
to the limited movement agency women and had at the time.
Often female characters were written by men as targets to
be made fun of, mocked, and kept in their place.
In this way, women who made Joe's and laughed could
be viewed as somewhat subversive. And I will say, like

(34:14):
I think about lay Miss, the whole thing is a
pretty big tragedy. But the two funny characters was the
woman who was essentially seen as a hag and then
her husband who they were both crooks. Essentially, we're the
funny bit to the entire movie. Everybody else was like,
you know, drama, drama, yes, but those characters are seemed

(34:37):
being funny or made fun of right English philosopher Thomas
Hobbs hu'd laughing as a political tool and weapon. He wrote,
quote men laugh at the infirmities of others, for when
a jest is broken upon ourselves, of friends, and whose
dishonor we participate, we never laugh thereat. In puritanical New England,
a woman laughing could be downright dangerous, sometimes believe to

(34:59):
be a sign of her covenant with the devil, and
particularly during times of prayer are fasting. One such woman
was Susan Martin. Records indicate that she was executed not
only for breastfeeding Satan with her quote which is tits,
but also for laughing at quote such falling during her trial.
So I believe they told her this was her charge

(35:20):
and she laughed. So they're like a which reminds me
of The Bitch, which we did a feminist movie Friday On.
But the way that movie ends is she sort of
accepted being a witch and being in Satan's covenant, I guess,
and she's laughing, Yeah, I know, like in several of
the movies I've seen I can't remember, Like laughing equals

(35:43):
to orgasm as well, Yeah, which is also a no no,
as well, having a fit in hysteria and all that
is somewhat related to laughter as well of those terms
in itself, so that's interesting. Two women in Chicago were
arrested in eight nine for laughing, and in the words
of a local newspaper, it says the trouble was caused

(36:06):
by a new joke on the kissing bug. I love it,
what's the kissing bug? With the arresting officer claiming, and
then they both lasted so loud they awoke the entire neighborhood. However,
the presiding justice was not impressed or concerned. Well, I
guess it certainly is a joke to arrested person for laughing,
and both women were discharged after that. But wow, wow,

(36:32):
I want to know this joke about the kissing bug.
I need to know about this kissing bug. I know
etiquette manuals around the nineteenth and early twenty centuries instructed
women to limit their laughter, that people would look down
on them for it, and that it was even potentially
dangerous a sign of female hysterics. A nineteen o two
obituary ran with the headline death from laughter, and it

(36:55):
described a woman who visited the theater to quote enjoy
a comedy and instead furnished to tragedy after she became
convulsed with merriment. Merriment even better. Yes, After a romantic
suitor told a woman a joke in nineteen o seven
about dentistry, she couldn't stop laughing until she was given
some anesthetics. When she came to, she said she couldn't

(37:16):
remember the joke, and out of caution, no one told
it to her. However, several articles claimed it went us follows.
A man went to the dentist to have a tooth
pulled and it hurt oh doctor. The patient said, if
only humans were born without teeth. The doctor replied, they
are you know, classic classic. Here's another example from a

(37:44):
widow named Anna Farrer attended a dinner party where someone
shared a funny joke with her. She started laughing so
hard she was quote unable to stop the laughing paroxysm,
and quote died before a physician could be summoned. The
joke wasn't printed for safety. Can you imagine maybe this
person were told that joke really killed well, they didn't
want anybody else to read it and have the same reaction,

(38:08):
which reminds me of the money five on skit The
Joke that Kills, the killer joke. Oh oh. It was
like a World War Two skits where the British Army
just like, after months and months of practicing and assembling
a joke in many pieces so people wouldn't read it

(38:30):
because it's dangerous in German, they constructed the perfect killer
joke and they would go around. The soldiers would go
around shouting it at German officers because they didn't understand
it so it wouldn't kill them, and the German officers
would laugh and then dropped dead. But then at the
end of course they're like, well, I want to hear this,
what's so good about it? And they say it in
English and then they all die as well. Nice. Yeah,

(38:54):
so that kind of reminds me of the Mary Poppins
scene where they're all laughing and they start floating because
they can't help talking about someone floats away and they
all tell jokes to each other. H I haven't seen
that movie in so long, but yeah, that's so a
lot of these advice columns and cautionary tales were coming
out as more and more women were entering the public

(39:16):
sphere and attending more public forms of entertainment more regularly.
So just so you know, ladies, laughing can kill you
exactly better not do it better? Not now, of no,
there are cases of men laughing at women, typically white women,
in areas where their patronage was valuable, and men laughing

(39:38):
at them made them feel unsafe and being arrested or
ejected from public venue, so that did happen as well. Interestingly,
women may have participated in highly derided sobbing clubs at
the time, and men's laughter was often seen as something
that was just are good in the face of their
sniveling as it was called um and particularly laughing at

(40:00):
entertainment geared towards women, which was incidentally where men were
most likely to be punished for it. Again, because people
didn't want to lose the people who the patrons who
were paying to see these things, and in Puritanical America,
laughing at a tragedy was viewed as something akin to
a sin that was real bad, a mind frame that
carried over into more modern times kind of relates to

(40:23):
some of the stuff we've been talking about. During the
late nineteenth century, there was a spate of articles claiming
that across the country men were laughing blasphemously during church services,
and some of them did get arrested. You know, I'm
thinking more and more about laughter being used like it's
a sin, Like when you see demonic possessions, they're often laughing.
And then I know that there are several diagnosis where

(40:46):
they talk about inappropriate laughing because it doesn't fit the uh,
the emotions. So therefore maybe they are ABC and c's
a kind of sociopathic diagnosis, which I started thinking about that.
Uh people. Yeah, so where we are now in our
more modern times, women's laughter is the subject of penalization

(41:08):
and also a feminist thought. M hmm. So just in
twenty seventeen, a Code Pink protester named Desiree Ferou's sorry
if I mispronounced that, was arrested after laughing during the
confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions to become Attorney General after
a Republican senderator said that Sessions had quote an extensive

(41:28):
record of treating all Americans fairly under the law. I'm
not gonna lie. I would laugh too. She potentially faced
a two thousand dollar fine and up to a year
in jail, but the judge ultimately ruled that laughing was
not adequate grounds for guilt. In that quote, it was
disconcerting that the government made the case in closing arguments

(41:49):
that the laughter in and of itself was sufficient. Yes,
it is disconcerting. The government motion filed against her claimed
that she was arrested because she sought to impede and
disrupt the senator Sessions confirmation hearing by drawing attention away
from the hearing itself and directing it instead toward the
defendant perception of the nominees racist views, policies, and voting record.

(42:14):
I'm not laughing because of the way he said, but like,
but it did, and all she did was laugh. So
for you to take that as that, I thinks again,
says more about you, whoever filed these charges, than it
is us about her. Professor of law at the University
of Michigan, Catherine A. McKinnon, wrote of this incident, criminally

(42:36):
charging and potentially sentencing Mrs Ferus for a brief, spontaneous
injection of political laughter as disruptive when it, at least
so clearly was not looks like an overly thin skin
reflex reaction to a woman appropriating what is usually a
masculine form of power, ridicule, public humulation by humor, and
in this case, political speech against racism. Of note, the

(42:57):
Trump administration was a repeat defender and punisher of women
mocking Trump. Um, take their reaction to Melissa McCarthy impersonating
Sean Spice, arity flipped out so angry, they were so
angry of all of s and l made me laugh.
But that's also true. Yes, this is somewhat reminiscent of
a scene from the nineteen two film A Question of Silence,

(43:20):
when three women laughed loudly and brashly at their own
murder trial, mostly at the premise presented that they lived
in a post sexist society that were on trial after
exhuberantly murdering a shopkeeper who harassed a female shoplifter. The
Question of Silence is a reference to the idea that
the marginalized don't have a voice in the face of it,
continued injustices. So defiant laughter is one way of sticking

(43:44):
it to the man and disrupting the status quo. Like
I said, I knew what would make my brother angry,
and that was just laughing. Yeah, yeah, this movie sounds interesting. Um,
I've never heard of it, but I want to check
it out now. And there have been cases of women
being arrested and jailed for disrespecting the dead throughout history
as well. And of course there is and has been

(44:08):
intersections with racism, homophobia, and able is um. In black
newspaper The Washington b wrote, it is against the law
for a black person to laugh at a policeman in
the street. The following year, black woman named Louisa Roberts
was fined two dollars and quote patrolman Hutchinson arrested her
for assassing some white women. Ralph Ellison wrote of a
Southern mythology around the quote laughing barrel public barrel that

(44:31):
black people were meant to put their head in when
they fell at a laugh coming on. In his essay
and Extravagance of Laughter, he wrote of the power of
laughter quote grotesque comedy, out of the extremes to which
whites would go to keep us in what they considered
to be our place. These attitudes and discrimination continue to
this day. In a group of eleven black women were

(44:52):
ejected from a Napa Valley wine train for laughing too loudly,
which led to the hashtag uh laughing Wild I remember
this because they are made at this huge scene just
because they were enjoying their time, to the point that
even other women were like, what are they doing there
at a bachelorette party? Nothing's wrong? Why are you kicking

(45:14):
them off? Right? Yeah, it's a wine train tour. Everybody's
drinking and giggling like that's not a bad thing. That
means they had a good time. I mean, why, yes. Right.
At the same time, there's also a long history of
using black laughter and minstrel shows to reassure white audiences
that there was no resentment or danger from black folks, right,

(45:38):
you know, that's kind of that conversation of trying to
make white people feel comfortable. So therefore, I'm uh, you know,
deprivading comments about being Asian to make the white people
in the room okay, in to the point that I
was like, oh, you're one of those Asians. Cool, That's
exactly what he said to me, And I was like,
what I think that was the moment I realized what

(46:00):
I did. I was like, oh, I have given them
permission to be outwardly racist to me. Crap, right, yeah, yeah.
And then there's also been a lot of conversation and
judgment around the gay voice and relatedly the gay laugh
that could be and probably will be its own episode,
but that is also a piece of this. And then yes,

(46:22):
going back to the joker, there's able is um going
on as well in this conversation, as well as a
very clear anxiety of people laughing at the wrong moment, which,
as we've discussed throughout this whole episode, there's so many
reasons for why that might be. Right. Yeah, So all

(46:42):
of this points to a history of censoring women's laughter
and the laughter of marginalized groups. It also points to
a history of people finding joy in the face of
trauma and discrimination and depression. Um. Even thinking about feminism specifically,
there's numerous examples of you know, yes, women aren't funny,
feminist buzz, can't you take a joke? Things like that.

(47:03):
As as with so many things we talked about, it's
such a double edged seeing because if you laugh then
you might get punished for laughing at the wrong time
or offending a man or hurting his ego. If you
don't laugh at their jokes or what they find funny,
then you're a bust killer. You can't take a joke?
Are your cold and frigid or whatever. It is. One

(47:25):
thing we didn't get into that we'd love to hear
from listeners about is cultural differences in laughing. There are
a lot of articles around all of this out of
Indian specifically Bollywood, which was really interesting, including this quote
laughter strips the object of power and gives power to
the one who laughs. When stand up comics make fun
of someone or something, their jokes are in effect criticism

(47:45):
and mockery, highlighting a social issue or a family reality.
There's so much to impact with all of this, because
again there is a line like there are jokes you
can make and jokes you can't, or definitely should it.
But yes, it is like a way to express defiance
in the face of oppression, for sure, And I think
that's why it does. It does have this history of

(48:08):
being punished when marginalized people do it at what people
in power see as the quote wrong time. Yeah, all
of that into so much as always I was, this
is a fascinating one to research. Yeah, and and listeners,
we would love to hear from you. Um, any cultural

(48:31):
differences you've noticed or gender differences you've noticed, and you
think at all like that, you can email us our email,
Stuff Idia mom stuff at i heeart media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at moms to podcast
or Instagram and Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always,
you are super producer, Christina, Thank you and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I Never Told You the production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcast on my Heart

(48:52):
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