Kleio Pethainou

I use the term “gender humour” to define jokes dealing with gender, gender roles and gender interactions. To keep it simpler I am not including sexuality in this category, these jokes are a category of their own.

I think that the dialogue between the sexes has provided inspiration to comedians since the beginning of time. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata is a very famous example of how gender roles have been used for comedy: when the women of Athens decide to go on a strike and deny sex to their husbands, the husbands stop the war to get their wives and their pleasure back. This is but one example of gender-related humour in human history.

Gender humour is therefore humour relevant to the sexes and their social roles. For the most part gender roles are rather specific, as you can imagine: women take care of the household and children and men deal with money, politics, war and all other serious business. How closely this rule was followed is a different discussion, as many women went outside the description of their roles to create art, to run households without male interference, to handle money and business very adequately and even to wage wars, when their positions allowed. I intend to write a separate post about these exceptional ladies – or more than one posts!

The rule says, however, that some activities are by definition womanly; this includes cooking and household chores. Imagine, therefore, when the lord of the mansion is caught like this.

The Lord is diligently sieving flour, which will be used to make the day’s bread. For the medieval viewer this is a man doing a woman’s job, and there is only one way to make this worse for him: make sure that his wife and his crush are watching.

The illumination is one of my favourites from the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles manuscript held in Glasgow University Library. The story narrates how the lord desired the maid, who was not easy to conquer. The girl did not want to risk the wrath of her mistress, so she was not responding to his advances, until one day he cornered her in the early morning hours while she was sifting flour. Realising that she could not get away this time, the girl agreed to have sex with him, only after she has made sure that his wife is still asleep. She offers to go and check but he would have to sieve the flour for her because she will lose time and bread will not be ready as planned. This might make her mistress and his wife suspicious, which is a risk he is not willing to take, so he starts sieving immediately.

The girl goes to her mistress who is indeed sleeping, she wakes her up, explains what happened and invites her mistress to see for herself. They sneak up on the lord who is in the pantry, eagerly sieving and his wife starts laughing at him. She teases him in a very familiar manner: “Where is now all your wisdom and reason?” to which he replies “It’s in the end of my cock!”

Just look at this wife’s face. The irony, the sarcasm, it’s all there. Next to the apologetic maid it is even more visible. She points you towards the lord. She shows you where to look.

Spy on the man who is sieving flour, sneak up on him, just as his wife is doing at the same time. There is this old saying according to which no harm is done if nobody sees you. Well, sir, we are seeing you, and so is your wife and your prospective lover.

How does a man recover from such a blow on their manhood? He meets with his friends, tells them all about it and lets them tease him and laugh at him too, until he feels like his old self again.

There is a very interesting discussion to be had here regarding how masculinity is defined, lost and regained. It is lost when he is found doing a woman’s work and mocked extensively, self-criticised even: he does admit that his penis has taken over both his reason and his wisdom. Male association is the cure. The jokes his friends make are teasing, not offensive. They tease his desire, his lust, the lengths he was willing to go to in order to sleep with the girl. Presumably, they would have done the same. The teasing indicates camaraderie and by laughing at him, his friends are actually accepting him as part of the “male team” again.

I am amazed about how contemporary all this feels.

I am also looking forward to your comments!

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