I’ve long since abandoned Instagram and haven’t (yet) succumbed to Tiktok’s siren song. In this season of gratitude, I’m thankful for the good friend who curates and sends me a small selection of posts featuring cute animals and themes relevant to my research. (So far, these have been entirely separate genres, but I’m not ruling out a mashup.)
Recently, my friend texted a music video featuring a blonde woman, fully made-up and wearing one of those ultra-feminine prairie chic dresses. She’s in a kitchen preparing “food” – over the course of the video, she dumps pill bottles and assorted inedible objects into a bowl absentmindedly – while sweetly crooning: “If you want your man’s help with the housework, make a list.”
The camera cuts away to a closeup of the same woman, eyes bulging, mouth grimacing, head pulled back to give herself multiple chins. Her voice is gravelly and an octave lower as she sings through clenched teeth: “I don’t wanna make a list.” The video (for a song titled “Make a List”) continues this back-and-forth between superego and id as they duel over how one should feel about, and respond to, male under-involvement in household life.
Demure Housewife counsels tolerance: surely her husband would be “happy just to help,” if only he knew what to do. Woman-at-wits’-end is having none of it. “He can write the list himself,” she snarls. But eventually, she caves and writes him a to-do list. Alas, “her man” doesn’t do anything on the list. “Don’t be a nag,” chides Demure. “How was he supposed to know the kids eat every night?”
In case it’s not clear from my description, the video is hilarious. The singer, who goes by Farideh, recently released an entire album of short songs, several of which I played on repeat and immediately texted to friends. Farideh’s works spans musical genres but centers on the tribulations of motherhood and heterosexual relationships: the post-partum body (“I pee myself everyday, pushed out a kid, that’s the price I pay”), the intransigence of small humans (“I wish you had a prefrontal cortex that would help you manage your rage”), and, of course, the buffoonery of husbands (“why do you need forty-five minutes to poop?“).
I’m glad this album exists, and I hope Farideh keeps the songs coming. I will listen to all of them and share widely!
And yet, as my spouse reminds me frequently, we sociologists like to “problematize” things. Guilty as charged: I have some questions. Namely, what does humor like that of “Make a List” accomplish? Specifically, when creators lampoon men’s incompetent or slacker tendencies, are they helping to challenge or subvert patriarchal norms?
Scholars of humor – yes, this is a thing, extending way back to Classical times – have generated very serious theories about what people find funny, why, and with what consequences. For example, Freud, always a pioneer,1 argued that laughter is the release of pent-up nervous energy we’d otherwise be using to repress some emotion—most likely, sexual desire or hostility to an individual or group.
More recent thinkers largely dismiss his theory as wrong, or at least incomplete; like many Freudian ideas, the empirical evidence is hard to come by. Nevertheless, you can see the echoes of Freud’s ideas in contemporary theorizing about whether and when humor acts as a force for social change.
In some circumstances, it seems humor helps maintain the status quo, because it gives people who might otherwise be motivated to change a way to harmlessly vent their negative feelings. In other cases, humor accelerates change by revealing the absurdity of ideas and practices we normally take for granted.
Applying these theories to the case of dad/husband-bashing humor, when and why does this genre undermine gender inequality, and when does it underpin it?
Let’s try a thought experiment. Say I’m a new-ish mom, sleep-deprived and stressed, wanting desperately to be the kind of partner who doesn’t yell at her spouse and cheerily whips up homemade pancakes every weekend. Alas, I’m just about at my max in terms of sh&@ I can handle. Scrolling Insta one evening, I come across Farideh’s “Make a List,” and I feel SEEN.
You know, I think, that is exactly my problem! John says he feels bad that I’m stressed, but he won’t take any initiative. I deserve to be frustrated! And perhaps I pad downstairs, shove the phone in my husband’s face, and say, “See? It’s not just me!” The next time John asks what he can do to help, I sing the chorus – “I don’t wanna make a list” – instead of either screaming in frustration or caving and telling him exactly what to do. The humor has a) jolted me into recognition of unfairness and b) offered a relatively gentle (because funny and depersonalized) way for me to advocate for a reallocation of mental labor.
That’s Option 1. Option 2 features that same stressed-out mom scrolling Insta, finding Farideh, and laughing in recognition. But instead of getting angry, she has a good chuckle and thinks, Ah, men. She sends the video to the group chat with a laugh-cry emoji, and then she moves on to whatever is next in her feed.
What’s been accomplished? She’s been reminded of the essential “otherness” of men and perhaps experienced a surge of solidarity with other women. Her understanding of what is “normal” behavior in different-gender partnerships—namely, that the female partner does most of the domestic work—has been subtly reinforced. The next time John asks what he can do to help, she thinks of the song: Oh well, what can you do? Making lists for men seems to be women’s lot in life.
Same video, two very different—and admittedly hypothetical—reactions. Without collecting more data, I can’t say for sure which predominates, but my hunch is that it’s Option 2. To see why, contrast “Make a list” with another of Farideh’s earworms, “Pee myself.” It’s a catchy little number about, well, post-partum incontinence. “I’m wet and I’m moist,” Farideh sings slyly, “but the reason might disappoint.”
The juxtaposition of pop song tropes (e.g., sexual innuendo) and unflattering details about bodily fluids is what makes this song especially funny. And because it’s funny, it provides an inroad to talking about something that’s not normally deemed fit for polite conversation.2 Though I am not a postpartum woman myself, I can imagine hearing this song and feeling both less alone and somewhat empowered: Yeah, I created a whole new life! So what if I pee a little when I laugh?
The difference between these two songs is close to what I think scholar Janet Bing means when she distinguishes between divisive and inclusive humor. Divisive jokes pit men against women, activating the “battle of the sexes” trope that reinforces notions of essential gender difference. (See: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.)
These jokes might make women feel good – not an inherently problematic outcome! – but rarely lead to social change. Bing sums it up well:
“Jokes that disparage men may help establish a sense of solidarity among heterosexual women….However, these jokes may also reinforce social stereotypes about what is (or should be) ‘normal’ behavior for males and females. Although such jokes may allow women to vent frustrations, they suggest no alternatives…and may even allow women to better tolerate an intolerable situation.”
Inclusive humor, on the other hand, targets problems rather than people. It satirizes absurd beliefs or behaviors that harm some group (say, women). And it tends to center the unique perspectives of that group, rather than highlight their status as victims of some oppressor (say, men).
In my read, “Pee myself” meets those criteria. It critiques the absurd ideas that we shouldn’t talk about how childbirth impacts women’s bodies or that such bodily changes are themselves gross or wrong or abnormal. It certainly centers a distinctly female—more specifically, post-partum—perspective. And in that way, I think it’s sneakily more subversive than the Farideh songs critiquing men. It’s certainly a more fun (and therefore more accessible) way to talk about post-partum challenges than I have ever encountered!3
My point is not at all to suggest that art like “Make a List” is anti-feminist. But I do think it’s important not to conflate catharsis with subversion, though lord knows we need some of both these days. Finding a way to laugh while demanding change may just be the ultimate multitask. And women are good at multitasking, right?4
Technically, he was building on earlier work by folks like John Locke.
Why did no one tell me about, say, prolapse until very recently? Why do I still have a very hazy understanding of what menopause entails? Yes, I’m responsible for educating myself. But also, we need to talk about these things, people!
Indeed, I sent this song to my husband as part of my ongoing campaign to inform him about the possible bodily traumas associated with childbirth.
Geez, I’m just joking. Don’t be such a Feminist Killjoy.