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Make Me Laugh: Why Do Women Sooo Value a Sense of Humor in a Man
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Women as human beings are oriented towards survival. The same of course can be said of men, who need to survive: the elements, animals and each other. Women sadly, need to add one more threat to this checklist which would be, you guessed it- men. When you couple this with a historically high maternal mortality rate, over eons this leaves women wired towards any advantage to their survival, inclusive of a keen eye as to what traits are a desideratum in a prospective mate. A mate who is hopefully more useful than not to their survival. A sense of humor, it is my contention, can be demonstrated to include within it varied survival advantages that leads to the conclusion that, “Laughter Matters.”
For one, to be capable of: sarcasm, wit, irony, satire and humor requires intelligence, mental agility and responsiveness. In the Incongruity Theory of Humor in Western Philosophy, with distinguished proponents like: Aristotle, Cicero, Kant, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, humor and laughter are largely understood to be based on the enjoyment of the perception of incongruity. makes us laugh.” In Emanuel Kant’s understanding, ”In everything that is to excite a lively convulsive laugh there must be something absurd (in which understanding can find no satisfaction). Laughter is an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.” For Schopenhauer, “The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception various versions of the Incongruity Theory, then, is that some thing or event we perceive or think about violates our standard mental patterns and normal expectations.”
Incongruity Theory, the most accepted theory on humor in contemporary philosophy, clearly is based on the ground of human intelligence. In the words of the Rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, ”If there is no intelligence, distinction from where? To get a joke one must have the intelligence to discern the specific incongruity,
Humor, it should also be pointed out, beyond general intelligence also involves social intelligence, as not everything is funny to the same people. For example, jokes or satire about Islam might go over quite well in many parts of Europe, not so much in Iran or Pakistan and sometimes they don’t go over so well in Europe either (Think France Charlie Hebdo ). Humor, it should be pointed out in more modern strains in the philosophy of humor- is “a choice” to perceive an incongruity as funny. These choices are subjective, value based and societally conditioned and navigating these audiences involves social intelligence. Social intelligence for a Biped Mammal who is dependent on relationships whether personal, professional, or political for survival is key.
So now, having hopefully established the semi-obvious, that humor involves both general and social intelligence along with mental agility and responsiveness, it is entirely understandable why a woman would value a sense of humor in a prospective mate. A woman in this line of thinking, may not be conscious, in this respect, that this is among the reasons why she values a sense of humor in a mate. This, just like a man is not conscious of why he is attracted to a woman with a slim waist, large hips, or blondes (see The Scientific Rules of Attraction by Roger Dobson in the Independent). Nevertheless, such evolutionary motivations can be operative and have been studied. Thus far the Philosophy of Humor and a bit of Evolutionary Psychology let’s move on to Neuroscience.
Today, in the West, we think of the notion of Femininity as a Gender “construct” entirely of our own making. What follows, is our capacity for assignment and definition of such Gender at will, after all, the thinking goes we made it up anyways. In the Liberal and now Post- Post- Modern West, we eschew notions that there is a “Feminine Essence” or “Feminine Nature”. This an idea, emergent in classical and traditional societies and spiritual communities that root themselves in concepts of Gender that are somewhat organically and tightly (perhaps too tightly) bound to the differentiator of Sex. Sex, as a gentle reminder is a: biological, anatomical, and physiological differentiator of Male and Female versions of the human species. The idea of a “Feminine Essence” also invokes and is somewhat wed to the idea that there is something more to a woman than just her body and mind, that she dare have a soul or spirit beyond or within such a body and mind that informs on good days her way of being in herself and the world. For the purposes of this article (and my preferred mode of existence) I will assume the perspective of a woman having a Feminine Essence that is different than a Masculine Essence. (Now would be the time to start chanting OM). A Woman in this paradigm is more flowing and circular and man more linear and straight. A woman is more process oriented a man more goal and outcome oriented. A woman is more connected to her body a man his mind, a woman more connected to her subjective feelings a man to rational objective thoughts. Women who engage in the modern world engage in a world that is very masculine if you prefer very patriarchal. This is a world that is: very time bound, linear, goal oriented, fast paced and a stressful environment. A world where control, hierarchy and dominance are fundamental rubrics of the culture. Rational Objective thought is the foundation of our scientific and technological tread mill of a society a society where working hard and playing hard is the order of the day (how many times have you read that on a dating app!). It is my contention that laughter for a woman is a way to return to her Feminine Essence, to reconnect with a flow, a lightness, a joy and the love that is within her. Humor involves the irrational, an escape from the constraints of the normative and the logical. In a sense, humor blows up the very ground of the masculine world we live in. It is space, a womb, where we can suspend that world and feel joy. When a woman says, “Make me Laugh” or “The way to my heart is through Laughter”, she is in our modern form of mating rituals inviting you to show up as a man who can support her in her deepest femininity and gifts. A femininity that she may have lost touch with, in part, given the formidable impact of the modern and masculine world she is seeking to survive and thrive in. There is in a sense of humor something deeper being sought, a return to a wholesome femininity, and way of being and the beauty that organically emerges from that within and without that the modern and hyper-masculine world can easily extinguish in a woman
A Return to the Feminine- Experimental Thoughts in the Psychology of Gender-Thought II
In conclusion, this article offers understandings and perspectives for a socially observed phenomena. I would enjoy hearing women’s perspectives on why they value a sense of humor in a mate and without these perspectives this article is far from complete. This article should thus be understood as the beginning of a discussion rather than a conclusive and final statement. Thank you for hearing my thoughts.
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