**TL;DR -- Humor requires someone to be the butt of the joke, but when you make a joke about a specific group of people, you risk offending them. Sometimes it's unfair to make jokes at others' expense, but if you are poking fun at yourself, it's okay to make people like you the butt of your joke, even if it's offensive.** > A passenger plane is flying through the air when it loses all engines. Before the plane crashes a woman traveller stands up and screams out "I want to die feeling like I am a woman!!" > She proceeds to rip off all her clothes and says "Is there anyone man enough on this plane to make me feel like a woman?" > A bloke in the back stands up, rips off his shirt and says "iron this!". > - [Keep Laughing Forever - Sexist Jokes](https://www.keeplaughingforever.com/sexist-jokes) While not the most offensive joke around, the above is certainly a kick in the teeth to women everywhere. How dare anyone imply that housework is what defines a woman? What is this, the 1950s? Am I on an episode of [Leave it to Beaver](https://sites.psu.edu/civicissuesmallon/tag/leave-it-to-beaver/) or something? And yet the mental image of this douche of a guy standing up and dramatically ripping off his shirt, only to completely flip the *sexual* implications on its head and turn it into a *sexist* situation, made me snicker the first time I read it. It's like, "seriously, dude? You just got a free pass to fulfill a fantasy before you die, but the first thing you think about is her *ironing your shirt?*" It's absolutely ridiculous, it makes the man look like an ass, and it's funny to think about the reaction the woman will have to his request. It also falls into the "sad but sometimes true" category of humor -- which is, in my opinion, one of the best. Now, truth be told, if a man was telling this joke to another man and *I* overheard it, I would personally probably not get offended. I'd snicker and move on, because come on -- that's funny as hell. But a know a lot of ladies who *would* get offended If they heard a man telling that joke. After all, it *is* perpetuating a sexist stereotype, and when men share sexist jokes between themselves, it tends to poison some of them, even if only subconsciously: > "Ford and Ferguson concluded that jokes don’t create hostility to the outgroup where it doesn’t already exist. But the evidence, they said, showed that joking reinforces existing prejudice. If you joke about women and get away with it, those who are hostile to women will see this as social sanction for their views and behavior. The joke tellers don’t themselves have to be actively misogynist to end up encouraging others to be." > - [PLOS Blogs - "Just Joking?" Sexist Talk in Science](https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2015/06/22/just-joking-sexist-talk-in-science/) So, maybe men ought to be careful about what kinds of jokes they make to other men. Even if the joke-teller isn't sexist and means nothing by it, it *can* reinforce and encourage sexist thinking/behavior in men who *are* legitimately sexist. And men ought to be careful about making this joke around women for obvious reasons -- it might get the man slapped, ostracized, fired, etc. But, if a *woman* were to tell that joke, it would be perfectly acceptable. Why? Because when a woman tells it, it's *obvious* she doesn't really think that way, because as a woman, she recognizes what's wrong with the stereotype, and is making fun of how ridiculous the situation is. Even a sexist man can pick up on the fact that she doesn't believe women are only fit for housework, and in the woman telling the joke, it *goes against* his sexist thinking, thus (potentially) causing him to stop and think "you know, maybe this *isn't* as normal as I thought it was. These women are making fun of it, which means they might get offended if I actually expect them to do stuff like that, and it might hurt my chances of getting with a woman. Maybe I should rethink my values." I know I focused specifically on sexism to illustrate my point here, but I believe this goes for just about *any* kind of joke that targets a specific, often vulnerable group. Some might argue that, even by an X person telling a joke about X people, that it would still reinforce the negative stereotypes and thus ought to offend others of group X as well (and sometimes, it does. I've heard plenty of women shaming other women for telling sexist jokes against women, for example). But, just as I explained above, when an X person tells an offensive joke about themselves/their own group, it's *obvious* they don't believe in that stereotype -- and most rational adults pick up on that, and know that this would not be okay in real life. The only group we ought to censor jokes like this around is kids, who are not yet mature enough to be able to tell that a joke is being ironic/sarcastic, and who might take the joke seriously and internalize the stereotype. But, if among other adults who are mature enough to see the truth beneath the joke, then have at it! After all, you are X. You're allowed to make fun of yourself, even if in doing so, it's also making fun of other X people. Have a laugh at life, relieve some stress, and move on. And, for people of group X who get offended easily -- remember that if the joke-teller is also X, then it's *not* harming anyone for them to tell a little joke, because anyone with half a brain knows that they're not being serious. So chill out and enjoy the joke. Or, if you absolutely can't enjoy the joke yourself, at least recognize other X people have the right to tell the joke if they want. After all, no one can dictate what someone else finds funny, and censoring people only forces them to bottle up emotions, and leads to eventual resentment.

**Does reinforcing negative stereotypes for one's whole group matter enough to consider it somewhat unkind/even sometimes dangerous to make negative jokes even as a member of that group?** Just to play the devil's advocate a bit: Is it possible that potentially reinforcing negative stereotypes about one's own group should be enough to give a joke teller pause? For instance, maybe most people would be totally fine with a joke told by a member of their group that makes fun of their heritage, but there could still be some people who actually end up feeling hurt by it, or even possibly worried about the potential ramifications of the reinforcement of negative stereotypes? I don't personally feel as though things have to go that far---and am very much in agreement with all of Jen's excellent points above, including her mentioning of this very point---but I do wonder if some would consider the potential for offending members of their group a good enough reason overall to refrain from making fun of X even if you are X yourself. (Perhaps crucially, the offended/worried person from the same group of the joke teller would have to think that the joke told is _not_ totally a joke in some way and/or that it could end up reinforcing negative stereotypes about the group either or both within the group or outside of it in some way that is harmful.) Personally, I think the vast majority of jokes are not going to be harmful enough to demand that X can't make fun of X. It does become tricky, however, to navigate the waters of "how much" inner-group joke telling could be problematic and "when/at what point for which amount of which specific groups" it is or isn't potentially harmful. So I'm very mixed, I think? Not totally sure. Curious about the stance, though.

It's not just a limit; you can make fun of whatever you want. If anything, you should only consider the audience of the joke before actually making it. For instance, if you know somebody is offended by, say, a slur (or the 'time' or 'place' are wrong, as the adage goes), you should probably try to avoid it. However, if you know that these conditions are not met (or have no reason to believe that they would be), you could make a joke with that slur. However, one does not need to be of the group that is directly affected by that slur to use it. Words have the power we give them. If one removes the prejudice attached to the word (ie, recognises the context as being a joke and not meant to cause actual harm), then it is easier to laugh at it. Furthermore, making jokes of this kind fall under two categories. Firstly, they can be a genuine joke meant to degrade that group. Secondly, they can be a genuine joke meant to degrade the group that would make a joke of the first category. Hanlon's Razor suggests that, if we encounter one of these jokes in the wild, we should not presuppose that it is done in malice without reason to believe so; in the meantime, we should presuppose that it is stupidity -- one of the foundations of comedy, usually Nonsense Comedy.