There were a lot of articles recently about the hiring of Marissa Mayer as head CEO of Yahoo. Why is that news? It is true there are still not many as many women CEOs as men, although it is changing. What got the media worked up about this was that she announced on twitter within moments after she was hired (it was quick) that she is 7 months pregnant. Shocking! Will she be able to handle it all? How do women do it? I am sure on her CEO salary, Mayer will be fine. Let’s just hope the media isn’t hanging on her every move.
Commento sulla sua intervista su D.it. (In english below)
“E’ difficile sfondare se hai un senso dell’umorismo diverso dal loro”. Qui il discorso e’ complesso,
le dinamiche di cio’ che fa ridere oppure no, non credo seguano binari automatici e sono collegati in modo complesso alle dinamiche sociali e alla ricettivita’ del pubblico. L’effetto ‘tormentone’ e’ pero’ la’ a dirci che se dai spazio a qualcosa a furia di ripeterlo puo’ diventare comico, quindi nell’affermazione della Donnelly c’e’ del vero. Pero’ per alcune femministe hardcore quell’affermazione puo’ essere anche un alibi dietro cui nascondere la propria incapacita’ di umorismo, perche’ l’unico umorismo alla fine e’ quello che fa ridere, e se dietro il proprio umorismo c’e’ la premessa ‘se non ridete e’ perche’ siete sessisti’ , e’ come voler far ridere puntando sul pubblico un kalashnikov carico, per riuscirci bisogna essere meglio di Toto’
“It is hard to break through if your sense of humour is different from theirs”. Here the argument becomes complex, the dynamics of what is funny or not do not follow fixed tracks and are connected in a complex way to the social dynamics and the audience receptivity. Yet, the repetition comic effect (in italian “tormentone”), i.e. how some punchlines repeated over and over can acquire powerful comic effect, is there to support Donnelly’s quoted statement. But for some hardcore feminists that statement can also be an alibi behind which to hide their not being funny, because in the end funny is what makes us laugh, and if behind your sense of humor there’s the blackmail ‘if you don’t laugh you are a sexist’ then it is like trying to make the audience laugh with a loaded gun aimed at them, very hard indeed…