Funny Girl(s)?

I read this examination of an article first posted in Guardian by Germain Greer on Salon.com. The post, "Women aren't funny, redux," by Kate Harding makes a great number of points in reference to the perceived humor diaspora between men and women. I'm copying a couple of passages I feel the need to address:

For men, "having a good sense of humor" is defined as being funny; for women, "having a good sense of humor" is defined as laughing at men's jokes.
I love this statement, because it sums up some of the more awkward moments in my history of relating to other people. I cannot hang with someone who doesn't get me. Men or women who can't laugh at me being funny (or thinking I'm being funny) are not likely to stay around. And heaven forbid, I have to spend time with someone else who finds themselves more humorous than I do. Blech.

"Quiz show Mock the Week usually invites one woman every other week or so, and every time I have been watching she has been eclipsed by the furiously competing six males who complete the cast of the show. Before she can get a word out, one or other of them will have snatched the microphone and gone riffing away on something he prepared earlier and has adjusted for the precise occasion." This, of course, has nothing to do with sexism, with how little our culture values women's voices, with men feeling entitled to speak while women have been trained to listen like good girls. It has nothing to do with the women being outnumbered 6 to 1 -- and we won't consider why that is in the first place, either. The problem is, "There is, after all, an element of trainspotting, of one-track-mindism in comedy that is alien to women." Oh yeah, and we're not competitive enough. Which is also totally not learned behavior.
There is so much wrong with the assumptions drawn in this passage, it's hard to know where to begin. First, why on earth would they have one female participant every other week and expect to see equal performance abilities? That's like being surprised when a male guest on the view gets that deer-in-the-headlights look. And when it comes to being "competitive," I can attest to playing on a sports team with men where I was knocked out of the way for the guys to make a play which may or may not have been better than the one I would have made. All this illustrates is that, sure guys may step in quickly, but that never guarantees that their contributions are more valid or effective. And, in my case, when I had put in the time and personally built my own confidence, I was able to step up and make my own well-reasoned plays. I think we are too quick to equate foolhardiness with competitiveness.

My final commentary on the post is one that the author didn't include. There are references made to comedy competitions and festivals and how these events include mixed audiences and that just goes to show that even women think men are funnier. But lets talk about real life. When it comes to expendable income and time, the typical scenario is that men choose to spend theirs in different ways than women. So when we look at sales and consumption of movies, dvd's, and cd's of comedy, I imagine that we would find much higher instances of of this spending by men. Thusly, if we follow the tenet that part of the humor of comedy is the ability of the audience to identify with the artist, it stands to reason that male comedians enjoy a greater proportion of success than female artists.

Anyway, I may just be tooting my own horn because I think I'm funny. But it seems like maybe more of us should start tooting to get the attention of those 'wild and crazy competitive guys.'