a man walks into a bar......

It might come as a surprise to some, what with the sort of internet personality I have devolved on a certain nameless podcast that I belong to; that I am at least sympathetic to the ideals behind feminism. There might be more surprise to that statement because I often claim to be an ironic misogynist but behind the bluster, winks, and jokes I do sort of think that the idea of male entitlement is sort of stupid (especially when it doesn’t effect me, in the other cases it’s a crapshoot)
One thing that annoys me, and there are many things, a veritable encyclopedia of petty grievances that causes me annoyance; but one thing I absolutely can’t stand is stupid bloody jokes. A gentleman at work, and I use this term very broadly somehow thought it would be a good idea to impress someone with an example of his saber like wit.
I heard that forever dollar a man makes a woman makes thirty cents less. So that means a man makes thirty cents.
For starters that joke isn’t even that funny. Sure somewhere in there is the seed of a joke, a very sexist abhorrent joke but a seed never the less. Second the “joke” failed in the delivery; maybe a guy who sweats profusely and looks like he was an extra from Apollo 13 isn’t the best delivery system for humour. Maybe he is better suited for the slide rule and algorithms, and somebody with a personality should have tried their hand at that abortion. The worst part of this was the guy who told it was high up the food chain and the person he told it to stroked his ego buy saying his was funny. A guy who looks like a president of the elk’s lodge circa 1956 isn’t inherently funny. It’s like when a priest tells something “humorous” at church, we laugh out of a sense of obligation because we fear that by not laughing we will anger our god.
I’m irritated by the sexist undertone to the guy. Why is gender pay inequality something to laugh at? Is it funny that a qualified woman generally makes less than an under qualified man. Is it funny that there are elements of our society who believe that women lack the intellect need to make decisions about their body. Is it funny that women have to work harder to “prove” themselves?
What’s funny though is that he told this on the same day that the Supreme Court cast their lot in with wal mart and big cooperation’s over the ability people have when suing for gender discrimination.