How to Talk to Anyone (Junior Talker #5) by DeYtH Banger (old books to read .TXT) 📕

permission" src="/uploads/posts/books/2/0/9/9/9/christopher_bergland_triple_ironman.jpg?itok=U54rrx6V" alt=" Dawn Mann, used with permission" width="639" height="519">In the early 2000s, Christopher Bergland won the longest non-stop triathlon in the world three years in a row (2001-2003) with a record-breaking time of 38 hours and 46 minutes. The “Triple Ironman” consists of a 7.2-mile swim, 336-mile bike and, 78.6-mile run done consecutively without sleep. As a gay triathlete who was sponsored by the skincare company “Kiehl’s,” Bergland embraced the moniker “Ironman Barbie” as a way to consciously address implicit bias and break stereotypes about gender, sexual orientation, and athleticism.Source: Dawn Mann, used with permission

 

As an openly gay Ironman triathlete, I began competing on the international circuit in the early 1990s, at a time when very few athletes were out of the closet. The look on people’s faces when they realized I was "homosexual," along with random comments I’d overhear from the sidelines, was a constant reminder of the implicit bias surrounding male homosexuality and excelling in sports competition. As a way to consciously address this implicit bias with a wink and a nod, I’d jokingly refer to myself as “Ironman Barbie.” This term may seem politically incorrect, but it served as a tongue-in-cheek way to take ownership of being treated like a second-class citizen in certain situations and to speak about the elephant in the room at award ceremonies. 

 

Observationally, it often seemed to me that somewhere in the back of their minds, men who were part of a heterosexual group of triathletes implicitly and explicitly thought, “He’s not like us.” Luckily, I had no desire to be a part of their clique and thrived on being an underdog and outsider. That said, to my surprise, even people who weren't the least bit homophobic seemed to subconsciously hold an implicit bias that being a “gay Ironman” was an oxymoron.

 

Noninvasive Brain Stimulation Offers Fresh Insights into "Us vs. Them" Implicit Bias

 

"Social beliefs reflect associations that are strongly ingrained in our brains, and changing them will likely entail the reconfiguration of their underlying biological processes," Maddalena Marini said in a statement. "No behavioral interventions designed to shift social beliefs so far—such as empathy training—have produced robust and long-lasting effects. Noninvasive brain stimulation techniques can provide insights that may help meet the urgent need in our society to better understand our intergroup social behavior."

The authors conclude, "NBS methods, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), can interfere with ongoing brain activity in targeted brain areas and distributed networks, and thus offer unique insights into the mechanisms underlying how we perceive, understand, and make decisions about others. NBS represents a promising tool to promote knowledge about the social minds of humans."

 

Chapter 14 - Bundle (Of Data) (Part 3)

 “You Suck!” and “Show Me Your Jugs!”

 

 

 

The difficult life of female comedians

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most intriguing, and controversial, questions regarding comedy is why are there so few female comedians? While there is no agreement on why that is, I would like to provide some explanations that have been proposed, and also offer some of my thoughts on this subject. I would be happy to hear what others think, so everyone is welcome to chime in on this interesting topic.

 

There is no doubt that female comedians are a minority. How many male comedians exist for every female comedian? We do not have an answer to that since no official registry of comedians exists. Even if we did have something like a comedy guild, the answer might depend on who we count as a comedian. Do we include amateur comedians and open mics, or do we just focus on professional comedians? Nonetheless, all indications are that there are overwhelmingly more male than female comedians. Past studies seem to indicate that the percentage of female comedians hovers around 10-15%. In my own study of professional stand-up comedians, over half a year I recruited 31 comedians, only 3 were women, almost 10%.

 

The disproportionally low number of women in comedy is only one example where there are fewer women in a humor related profession. A comprehensive study of professional cartoonists, where researchers made every effort to include as many female cartoonists as possible, searching magazines, books, journals, special volumes, internet databases and personal contacts, found that out of a total of 1519 cartoonists from 61 countries, only 9% were women.

 

Source:

 

Why is it then, that there are so few women working in stand-up comedy? There are certain stereotypes and cultural barriers that no doubt affect women in comedy. Christophe Hitchens famously expressed one prevalent and persistent stereotype that “women are not funny”, a sentiment shared by many people, mostly men. This is clearly not true as evidenced by the many funny and successful female comedians such as Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Kathy Griffin, Joan Rivers, Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Chelsea Handler, Wanda Sykes, and the list goes on and on. So obviously, women could and certainly do become successful comedians but not anywhere close to the number of men in the business. Why?

 

Cultural Factors and Sexism

 

There are certain factors in the business of comedy that work against women and create obstacles that most men do not have to worry about. George Carlin put it nicely: “Specifically, an individual woman is as funny as any specific individual man. The difference is in the enculturation and conditioning that people go through, and for a long time there weren’t many female stand-up because it was somehow too masculine a job, too aggressive job” (all quotes on this post are from the documentary “History of the joke”). Aisha Tyler said it more blatantly: “Women are not socialized to be aggressive. We are very much kind of told by culture to be precious, be pretty, be cute, and comedy is not precious, or pretty, or cute.”

 

These are some observations from comedians regarding how society might deal differently with men and women, ways that can affect how they perform but also how they are perceived by the audience. If our culture discourages women from being aggressive but rewards aggressive humor, then women are placed at a disadvantage. It is important to note that men are naturally more aggressive than women on average, which can increase the bias.

 

But even if men use more aggressive humor compared to women, not all comedians follow their gender typecast. The problem is that there seems to be different reactions and consequences for a man using a clean act, compared to a woman telling dirty jokes. Women who turn into what is perceived as a more masculine act, using sexual and more aggressive types of humor, may not succeed as much as their male counterparts. It is considered less appropriate for women to behave like “alpha males”, where they are perceived to be out of line, while male comedians can do whatever they want and no one will question their choices. In fact, a profane act is sometimes considered edgy for male comedians.

 

Compare for example, Jerry Seinfeld with his very clean act that doesn’t seem to hurt his popularity, to Sarah Silverman who uses profanity in most her acts. Lately, her use of foul language landed her in the hot seat. After watching her latest HBO special “We Are Miracles”, critic Brian Lowry expressed his concerns that by trying to imitate men’s humor using vulgarities and crude humor, Sarah Silverman was hurting her career. I think that the view that there are styles of humor that are appropriate to use by men but not women is quite sexist and preposterous. For me, a comedian is either funny or not, regardless of whether he or she curses or tells dirty jokes. You can be very funny with an R-rated program or you can bomb, and you can have a clean show that is funny or boring, and that has nothing to do with your sex. This is not to say that there aren’t some styles of humor that might appeal more to men than women and vice versa. Women audiences might prefer cleaner and less aggressive shows, but in most cases it has nothing to do with the sex of the performer. This is also related to a claim I heard from numerous comedians that women’s humor might appeal only to women while men’s humor appeals to both sexes. I am not sure how much truth there is to it.

 

The concept that female comedians should not curse is just one example of sexist attitudes and double standards in the world of comedy. Female comedians are also perceived to represent all women while male comedians represent only themselves. If a female comedian is not funny, people might say that women are not funny. But if a male comedian is really bad, people would tend to say that John Doe isn’t funny and not that all men are not funny. As Kathy Griffin uttered: “When you get heckled as a woman, it’s never just ‘you suck’, it’s ‘you suck’ and ‘show me your jugs’ combined. And that just doesn’t happen to guys. No one is going to heckle them and say ‘show me your balls’, because nobody wants to see them”.

 

Problems with Comedians’ Lifestyle

 

Beside sexism and cultural factors, there are also other, more objective obstacles that hamper women’s road to success in comedy. One of the biggest problems with a comedy career that affects women more than men is the constant travel. In order to be a good and a successful comedian, one must travel constantly. Performing in front of diverse crowds helps comedians to furbish their comedy act. This is especially important early in the career, when comedians want to establish themselves in the business. Many female comedians do not like to go on the road, or the road doesn’t like them, as traveling poses certain risks and costs for women that are not much of a problem for men. For instance, traveling alone raises the risk of sexual harassment and sexual assault, a problem faced almost entirely by women. Most weeks, comedians live in a condo owned by the manager of the club in which they are performing. Living in a condo can be very uncomfortable for a female comedian, especially considering that in most cases there are two male comedians staying with her.

Then there is the issue of family. Generally speaking, it is much easier for men to travel when they have a family. Both culture and biology limit the amount of time a woman can travel with a baby, while a man can often rely on the help of his partner at home to take care of the baby. This creates an unequal opportunity for mothers to succeed in comedy. The end result of all these constraints is that more women than men prefer performing in local clubs and not to go on the road, something that impedes the development of a comedian’s career. Kathy Griffin summarized it well: “It’s definitely harder for a woman on the road, and guys will never admit this, but what do they know? “

 

Evolved Sex Differences and Comedy

 

I think we all can agree that there are obvious societal barriers and stereotypes that prevent women form getting into or succeeding as stand-up comedians. Nonetheless, the overwhelming skewed disproportional number of men and women suggests that there might be something more than just culture involved. As mentioned earlier, there seems to be a very low number of women in all humor professions. Estimates of the