a joke

"I'm going to tell you a joke that's a bit sick", he announced in a rush. As I was making some food at the time, I assumed it would concern bodily functions. Not exactly...

"The teacher tells a boy to find his spelling words by looking around him. So he sees a plane take off and writes down 'take-off'. Then he goes to the zoo and sees a zebra so he writes down 'zebra'. Then he sees a baby in a pram and writes down 'baby'.

He goes back to the teacher, who asks him what his words are and he says [in a Russian accent]: "Take off zee bra, baby".

Get it?

He immediately said [this entire conversation was spoken in a guilty rush, on his part] that his friend Rob had made this joke up. Maybe, though I'd guess an older friend told it to Rob (who just turned nine and whose parents are good friends of ours.) Rob is probably trying to lay claim to it, which says something about what's considered boastworthy among boys of this age.

This isn't the very first time Olle has repeated a sexist comment or joke - he's repeated one or two before, in a slightly puzzled and guilty way, knowing before he says them that there's something wrong, even if he's not sure what it is. (I'm glad he tells me these things - I think he's seeking reassurance on some level. I suppose his openness won't last forever.) When he was seven, he'd tell me that some of the other boys in his class, who he wasn't friends with, would sashay their hips, pretending to be women, and say "Sexy!" He found that scary - he still finds any reference to romance or sex scary.

I was suprised then when, a few months ago, his best friend was visiting and they were examining a class photo from second grade. In the photo, Olle is standing next to the female teacher, his head at her chest level. I overheard him tell his friend, "I could feel her breast against me". He said it in such a way that it was meant to be impressive and a bit risque, but in fact it fell completely flat - his friend was totally uninterested.

So already, by age eight, he has learnt that women's breasts are to be objectified (even though he regularly sees us nude and doesn't bat an eyelid.) Or is it that he has learnt that part of the social currency among men - and boys - is the sexist remark?

After he'd told the joke this morning, I tried to explain to him what a putdown it is. I tried to help him see it in terms of his current female teacher, who's wonderful, and how demeaning of her intelligence and her great ideas it is to see her in terms of her breasts.  And I tried to talk lightly about how badly women have been treated throughout history ("since the second world war"? he asked) and how when I was young (!) I was in the women's movement to improve the status of women. (Actually I didn't use the word 'status'.) Then I changed tack, talking about his friends who are Jewish and Asian and black and how upsetting it would be if they were put down or even physically attacked (he is beginning to know a little bit about the Holocaust and we recently watched Amazing Grace with him and talked about slavery) and how jokes like this are part of that process. I tried to be calm and conversational (and was busy doing things in the kitchen at the time) and he rushed to agree with me and to show that he knew about these things. But now that I think about it, he seemed very anxious during our talk and I'm not sure I was able to address that.

At the end I canvassed the option of him talking to Rob about the joke but he was adamant that he wouldn't - and indeed, how difficult that would be. These are kids, hanging out in groups, trying to impress each other with their skills and worldly ways. No one wants to be the odd one out or the spanner in the works.

I'll have to think about this more.

Comments

[Kirsten]

Well, I for one will be grateful if you write about it some more when you do. I can already tell that it won't be long before I am wondering how to tackle the same issues, and I am quite daunted by the prospect.

[JenniferV]

Well, I can tell you for sure that Rob didn't make it up. I remember hearing it (I think it was the first sleazy joke *I* ever heard from an older child) and I think I was about 7, making it 1975 or 1976.

[susos]

Further thoughts: I'm not worried that O will mutate into a domineering sexist - I'm confident in his empathy and respect for other people. What does concern me from incidents like this is the challenge he faces in learning to be a 'man' with other men - can there be male bonding without positing women (or other groups) as 'the other' to be ridiculed? Is objectification going to be completely intrinsic to how he learns about (hetero)sexuality, a la this joke? Will he find friends and find a place in this culture which don't demand this of him?

[Valerie]

(I heard Rob's joke in the early 1970s, and it didn't sound new then.)