Navigating the Narrative Space of Women: Gender and Sick Humour
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Women's "narrative space" - the authority granted women's stories - exists marginally, as the concept of female story continues to compete with the perceived monopoly of the "master text." "Sick humour," an approved method of publicly reducing subject to object, principally reconstructs its target, or "butt," through the mechanism of gender identification. Exploring the culture and popularity of "sick humour," I critique the means by which sick jokes-which can in some cases effect social change-define the public awareness of three ordinary American women: Christa McAuliffe, Cathleen Webb and Lorena Bobbitt. Assessing the narrative space of these women, whose private tragedies became sensational public domain, we experience how the humour surrounding and confining women replaces their specificity with the saleable and consumable images of other female bodies.
Source: Gender forum
Author: Baum, Rob
Language: English
Topic: Gender and Feminist Studies
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3095236654