How many times have you heard someone say something so messed up and offensive, only to be told that you can't get upset because it's "just a joke"?
Reddit user u/cinamooninmyteeth recently asked, "Which commonly used jokes reek of thinly veiled misogyny to you?"
1. "All of those wedding cake toppers with the groom being dragged down the aisle by the bride. 'Hurr durr, woman tricked man into marriage!' As if marriage has ever been for the benefit of women."
2. "Any period or PMS jokes. We get it, you think that our hormones affect our moods drastically. Move on."
3. "I was hanging out with a boyfriend and some friends. We got on the topic of kids, and my boyfriend said, 'I’m not touching them until they’re out of diapers.' Everyone chuckled, but that’s how some men really think. It was so casually misogynistic."
5. "Any joke where you make fun of feminine men. The idea is that a guy who acts and looks feminine is somehow less masculine, is weaker, is gay, etc. It’s rooted in 'feminine people are weaker naturally.' Thus, misogyny with a dash of homophobia and transphobia. Remember that every time you laugh automatically when a man wears a dress or sings a song by a female artist, your second reaction should be asking yourself, 'Why are you laughing?' You might be part of the problem."
6. "I hate the term 'girl boss.' I got called that every day as a manager, and I was like, 'No, I'm just your boss, and you are treading very thin ice.'"
7. "I work in trades, and my husband works in specialty coffee, so I hear, 'Oh, so you wear the pants in the family, huh?' all of the time. Like yeah, he's not 'macho,' that's why I like him. But it doesn't mean that he's not a man."
8. "Those stupid jokes about telling women to 'just calm down' and then poking fun at how the frustration and anger escalates. This is also thrown around in a lot of memes. Gaslighting women by dismissing their valid emotions, opinions, and means of expression is insulting but sadly happens way too often in reality."
9. "In middle and high school, there'd be dudes with shirts that said, 'Cool Story Babe, Now Make Me a Sandwich.'"
10. "Those 'I hate my wife' jokes that some men do, or the ones where it's suggested the woman is crazy in the marriage."
"My dad gets these kinds of jokes in his WhatsApp groups and when he finds one that's 'really funny,' he tells them to my brother and me and expects us to laugh, and he does this in front of our mother, his WIFE, who is clearly uncomfortable with these kinds of jokes."
11. "I used to have a teacher who would always say, 'You're lucky that you're pretty' like a joke, but he was just calling me stupid and being a creep at the same time."
12. "'HAVE YOU EVER BEEN KICKED IN THE BALLS?' It's okay, Harald. Your pain lasts for maybe 10 minutes; I have to suffer for seven whole days when this shitty organ decides to shed."
13. "Whenever I say that I want to Twitch Stream, my guy friends automatically joke and say it's easy for me to pull numbers because all I have to do is dress with my titties and ass on display. I don't want to sexualize myself to get an audience; I want my personality to get me an audience, not my body."
14. "Any time a man 'jokes' by calling a woman 'woman.' For example, a small gathering of friends where a husband 'jokes' to his wife, 'Go fetch me a beer, woman!'"
15. "The #boymom crap. 'Oh, it's so tough being a #boymom, because they like playing in the dirt, they're messy, they laugh at farts, they fight like crazy, they ruin everything, but it's okay because they say they love you!' Firstly, girls like all that stuff, too. Secondly, boys can like dolls, princesses, flowers, and quiet play like reading or painting. Thirdly, don't reinforce the shitty belief that just because they say they love you or give you a hug, they can be dismal human beings. When they're young, sure. But I've met multiple #boymoms who talk about their 10+-year-old with, 'He's such a boy. He trashed the house last weekend and ate his sister's birthday cake, but as soon as I start trying to tell him off, he just says, 'I love you, mom' and I can't stay mad at him.'"
"I recently saw an Instagram story where the mom took a picture of her toddler peeing from the third-floor balcony onto the ground and captioned it with '#boymom, what’s a girl to do?'
I don't know, maybe tell your son to stop peeing off of your balcony that might have people walking down below?"
16. "Jokes about how men are incompetent around the house. Having a uterus did not imbue me with magic cleaning powers, and not having one does not make you dependent on me to take care of you. You’re an adult. Learn how to perform basic life skills."
18. "Jokes about how some girl is going to end up being a stripper because her dad was shitty. It’s a double whammy: A woman is defined by the man in her life, so of course, she’s going to be worthless unless her dad molds her into something of value. And sex work is not a valid job because… I have no fucking idea on that part. I guess because it's mostly women doing it."
"I also see it from this perspective as well: Men are not held accountable for mistreating their children, and the blame is put on the child that went through trauma instead."
19. "MIL jokes. I grew up in evangelical settings where the speaker would often warm up the crowd with some horrible mother-in-law jokes and then be like, 'Uh oh, my wife's mad now! It's okay. I love them both actually,' and the crowd would laugh over their communal deep-seated misogyny, and even when I felt at home in that community, I felt disgusted."
20. "Way too many jokes that are maliciously directed at Black or dark-skinned women, ESPECIALLY anytime someone calls someone 'ratchet,' 'ghetto,' or even 'Sharkeisha.' We know what you really want to say."
21. "Every woman driver joke ever. Our insurance rates tell you that we’re actually better drivers than men."
22. "Any of those 'If you want to date my daughter' jokes that involve implicit or open threats of violence from the father. Way to teach your daughter that she is damaged by sexual contact and should be viewed as personal property by the men in her life. Great parenting right there."
23. "One of my husband's friends is constantly joking about cheating on his girlfriend, and all of the other men in our group play along and laugh. It bugs me, and my husband has told me privately that it bugs him, too, and he doesn’t agree with it, but he goes along with it as to not ruin the mood. I’m just tired of men not calling out their buddies on stupid shit."
24. "Anything about 'chick flicks,' and jokes about pop culture with a focus on women and how it's all so lame, frivolous, and niche, and how men lose their 'man card' if they enjoy any of it."
25. "Any time any woman gets a bonus, promotion, etc., and the reaction is, 'Who’d you sleep with?'"
26. "Saying to young men in front of their girlfriends, 'You like her now, but wait until you're married.'"
27. "I just hate all general jokes about women holding the men in their lives back, like the 'old ball and chain' kind of attitude. It kind of reminds me of those older late '90s/early 2000s sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens that humorously painted the women as overbearing when really, it was the husbands who were helpless and lost without their wives. Granted, the shows became self-aware, and the men often learned how much they relied on their wives, but it just stunk always seeing the women in those shows getting thrown under the bus in such stereotypical ways."
28. "Any teenage girl's interest that is always made fun of. Makeup, boy bands, reading, video games, etc. Teenage girls or young women literally can’t have any interest in anything without being made fun of."
29. "Men making the 'rawr' cat hissing sound referring to two women being catty. My husband did it to me recently when I made a neutral comment about another woman, not trying to insult her at all. It was so rude, and he could not understand how sexist it came across."
30. "'What, daddy issues got you down?'"
31. "I had a guy friend who would look at his wife from afar and say, 'That right there, that's prime breeding material.' Then, if anyone in the group got upset, he would just claim that he was joking. I told his wife, and she rolled her eyes and sighed. I don't think that was the first time she had heard about that coming from him, which I think makes it worse."
What's a 'joke' that's actually just an excuse to be offensive that you're tired of hearing? Let me know in the comments.
Note: Some submissions may have been edited for length/clarity.