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BodhiBenz1987 · #35 12-05-2008, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by riorust

I think folks need to be able to laugh at themselves sometimes

Agreed ... obviously there's a line, and I guess it's different for everybody. But as a woman, I certainly here plenty of jokes that could "offend" me, but most of the time they make me laugh. There is a huge difference between someone actually discriminating against me because I'm a woman, and someone making a joke about shoes, or crying, or bad driving. I make those jokes myself. I don't take offense at that because I don't consider myself among the stereotype targeting in those jokes ... and anytime I find myself acting like a stereotype, I am able to laugh at myself for it and admit it.

Funny "sexist" incident recently ... I was in Barnes and Noble and picked up an MB Classic magazine off the shelf and starting flipping through it. This man was standing next to me looking at another car mag. As soon as I started looking through my magazine, he absolutely froze, and stared at me as though I'd just whipped out a crackpipe or something. After a long pause, he goes, "A girl? Looking at CAR magazines?", then shakes his head and walks off .... as though is entire universe had just been turned on end. I guess I could have been offended, but instead I just couldn't stop laughing about it the rest of the night.

I guess it all depends on your perspective and what you've been through, or what you've been taught to be offended by. I've never faced terrible discrimination for my gender and was raised to have a sense of humor about the various shortcomings (and blessings) or all types of people, within limits. I wouldn't make fun of mentally handicapped people in front of my sister, who is educably mentally retarded (and knows it), but I never got offended if someone called someone else "retard" when clearly there's no one actually retarded in sight.