14 DAY TRIAL // All blondes are stupid, but really stupid and driving should be forbidden for women, isn't it? Despite the benign appearance, jokes on blondes and women drivers can lead to approving misogynism, as found by a new research led by Western Carolina University psychology professor Thomas E. Ford and to be published in February in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
"Sexist humor is not simply benign amusement. It can affect men's perceptions of their immediate social surroundings and allow them to feel comfortable with behavioral expressions of sexism without the fear of disapproval of their peers. Specifically, we propose that sexist humor acts as a 'releaser' of prejudice." said Ford.
"Our research demonstrates that exposure to sexist humor can create conditions that allow men - especially those who have antagonistic attitudes toward women - to express those attitudes in their behavior. The acceptance of sexist humor leads men to believe that sexist behavior falls within the bounds of social acceptability." he explained.
In one test, male subjects had to imagine that they belonged to a work group in an organization. They read sexist jokes, non-humorous sexist statements, or non-sexist jokes and subsequently had to report the amount of money they would donate for a women's organization.
"We found that men with a high level of sexism were less likely to donate to the women's organization after reading sexist jokes, but not after reading either sexist statements or neutral jokes," said Ford.
In another test, male subjects were presented video clips of comedy skits: 4 clips had humor presenting women in stereotypical or demeaning roles, only the fifth clip being neutral (non-sexist). Subsequently, the subjects were put to say how much they would allocate to various student organizations.
"We found that, upon exposure to sexist humor, men higher in sexism discriminated against women by allocating larger funding cuts to a women's organization than they did to other organizations. We also found that, in the presence of sexist humor, participants believed the other participants would approve of the funding cuts to women's organizations. We believe this shows that humorous disparagement creates the perception of a shared standard of tolerance of discrimination that may guide behavior when people believe others feel the same way." said Ford.
"The research indicates that people should be aware of the prevalence of disparaging humor in popular culture, and that the guise of benign amusement or "it's just a joke" gives it the potential to be a powerful and widespread force that can legitimize prejudice in our society," he added.