Hitchens argued that men are funnier than women based on research. He claims that humor is incentivized for men as a way to attract women, whereas women do not need to be funny to attract men. However, the author provides two counterarguments. First, that women seek humor in partners, so men are motivated to be funny for reproductive purposes. Second, that while some women comedians are very funny, humor is not as existential of a necessity for women as it is for men. The author reviews both Hitchens' perspective and their counterarguments but leaves the conclusion open for debate.

1. THECASEFORCOMEDY#3
MENAREFUNNIERTHANWOMENhat’s ccording to Christopher Hitchens, not Christopher Gyorgy. So before
you lead a group of angry but very funny women to my house to burn it down, let me repeat, Christopher
Hitchens said that, not me. And you can’t burn Hitchens’ house down because sadly, he is no longer with
us. Besides, I don’t agree with him anyway.
Regarding this inflammatory assertion that ‘Men are funnier than women’, Hitchens made his case very
eloquently, citing research by a group of Stanford scientists, in a Vanity Fair article which you can read here:
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701. He makes some good points, but I have a few
counter arguments that I’d like to put forth.
Hitchens’ first point is that you’ll often hear a woman describe a new boyfriend like this: “He’s cute, has a good
job, and he’s really funny”. This is confirmed by every match-making site on the planet, where a “good sense of
humor” is never not on the list of things single ladies are looking for in a mate.
So, here’s counterpoint number one: Since humor is such a desirable quality, men are thus incentivized to be
funny. So much so, that for Hitchens, being funny became a “lifelong preoccupation”—in order to achieve the
“sweet surrender of female laughter”.
Let’s review. Women have pretty much made a sense of humor a requirement for courtship and have even
requested it in writing (on match-making sites).
Men have become aware of this. For their part, most men have at least realized, on some dim biological level, that
to ensure the continuation of the species, humor has become an evolutionary necessity. No funny, no nookie.
Conversely, Hitchens points out, women have ‘no corresponding need to appeal to men in this way’. Why?
Because they already appeal to men, if you know what I mean.
But, ‘wait’, you say, ‘what about all the hilarious female comediennes out there’? Yes, there some wickedly
funny women, but humor is not an existential necessity for them. Which brings me to counterpoint number two:
Women are funny because they want to be, not because they have to be. And the female comics that Hitchens
interviewed, confirmed this. Comedienne Fran Lebowitz said, “For a woman to say a man is funny is the
equivalent of a man saying that a woman is pretty”. A woman said that.
What do you think? Is Hitchens right? Am I right? Or are we just a bunch of sexist, misogynist, racist-xenophobes?
T
GYORGYDYGYTLPronounced georgie-digital. It only looks complicated.