IHSI Diversity Committee Monthly Resources
Each month, the IHSI Diversity Committee shares resources and learning opportunities with the rest of the IHSI staff. Curating and sharing these resources allow us to educate ourselves on various topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. As an institute devoted to promoting all forms of health, we want to share these resources more broadly with our campus and community stakeholders. We hope that you will find them as useful as we have.
April spotlight: Humor and power dynamics
This month, Aman Kaur, IHSI Research Biostatistician, shared resources to help us better understand how humor is understood, valued, and used in society to reflect power.
Humor is essential to connect with people. It is often used to lighten up situations at work but humor itself is not light. Research in sociology and psychology shows that it is deeply tied to status, gender norms, and social expectations. Humor feels harmless, but it quietly encodes who gets to be funny, who is allowed to take up space, whose humor gets dismissed, and how different voices are treated in professional/other settings.
Humor is not neutral – it reflects power.
In a 2019 study titled ‘Gender and evaluation of humor at work’, the researchers found that “humorous males are ascribed higher status compared with nonhumorous males, while humorous females are ascribed lower status compared with nonhumorous females. These differences have implications for subsequent performance evaluations and assessments of leadership capability.” This study was valuable because it focused on workplace evaluation. The same study also suggested that humor can be perceived as ‘disruptive’ or ‘functional’ based on gender.
Dr. Nancy Wayne wrote a blog post titled ‘The Joke’s on You: Gender Bias in How Humor is Perceived’ that refers to this 2019 study, and several others, and shares her own experience and perspective around humor and gender. While humor is a common way of connecting with people in the workplace, it can be a double-edged sword for women.
Women may be perceived as less engaging and less charismatic if they are not funny. If they are very funny (especially sarcastic, bold, or critical), they risk being seen as aggressive, unprofessional, or ‘too much’. The underlying issue is breaking norms. Humor often involves breaking norms, but women are more heavily penalized for breaking norms, so they have less room to experiment, fail, or push boundaries, which is actually essential for being funny.
Breaking norms is another reason why female stand-up comedians often have to work harder to break the age-old stereotype that women aren’t funny. Iliza Shlesinger, a stand-up comedian, shared about the constant need for women in comedy to justify and carefully refine their material, highlighting how female comedians often self-edit and face greater scrutiny from audiences. This TED talk (rating TV14) - Why you think women aren’t funny | Jodie Mitchell / John Travulva - by a queer stand-up comedian, Jodie Mitchell/John Truvulva, demonstrates the bias clearly. Performing as both Jodie and John (their drag king name), they found that audience reactions changed depending on gender presentation, even when the comedic ability remained the same. This suggests that humor is filtered through gender expectations. They also shared that non-cis men often have to work harder to gain the trust of the audience.
Humor is essential, but so is being aware of our biases and perceptions, because inclusion is not only about making space for different voices but also about how we receive them. We may unintentionally reward some voices while discouraging others.
This invites us to pause and reflect on how we respond to humor around us.
- Are we reacting to the humor itself or to our expectations of the person delivering it?
- What can we do to ensure humor is inclusive rather than limiting?
Resources:
Gender and evaluation of humor at work – Evans and colleagues (2019)
The Joke’s on You: Gender Bias in How Humor is Perceived – Dr. Nancy Wayne
So, here’s the thing about women comedians that isn’t funny – The Harvard Gazette
Why you think women aren’t funny | Jodie Mitchell / John Travulva - TEDxLondon (rating TV14)