Navigating the Narrative Space of Women: Gender and Sick Humour

Authors

  • Rob Baum

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18716/ojs/gefo/2006.2975

Keywords:

narrative space, sick humour, female bodies, American women

Abstract

Women's "narrative space" - the authority granted women's stories - exists marginally, as the concept of female story continues to compete with the perceived monopoly of the "master text." "Sick humour," an approved method of publicly reducing subject to object, principally reconstructs its target, or "butt," through the mechanism of gender identification. Exploring the culture and popularity of "sick humour," I critique the means by which sick jokes-which can in some cases effect social change-define the public awareness of three ordinary American women: Christa McAuliffe, Cathleen Webb and Lorena Bobbitt. Assessing the narrative space of these women, whose private tragedies became sensational public domain, we experience how the humour surrounding and confining women replaces their specificity with the saleable and consumable images of other female bodies.

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Published

2025-07-31