Is Funny A Gender Thing?

Tara Sparling writes

I found myself saying something utterly woeful the other day. I was describing a book I’d read to a friend. “I think it’s for men,” I said to her. “I mean, it was good. But it didn’t grab me. So I think it was probably written for men.”

To my credit, I whacked myself in the face with a large fresh haddock after I said this, because it was an uncommonly stupid thing to say for someone who climbs on to a soapbox 48% of the time about how labels such as “women’s fiction” should be burned at the stake.

Unfortunately, it was also true.

The book was supposed to be funny. In fact, the reason I’d bought it, apart from the fact that it had been nominated for multiple prizes and won a few very serious ones, was because of the cover quote from the Irish Times. “So good,”…

View original post 621 more words