A surprising number of jokes focused on the issue of women and women's rights, indicating a fairly high degree of awareness among the general U. S. public about the oppression of women under the Taliban rule. To me, the first two of these are among the funnier and least offensive jokes that I received, though they are, of course, rather self-congratulatory, suggesting that there is no sexism in the U.S. The bottom two are a little more contentious. The third one, in particular, is disturbingly misogynistic, while the final one tries the tactical misfire of suggesting empowerment while actually putting women down. Nevertheless, the prevalence of jokes focusing on women or seemingly targeted toward a female audience is notable.

[See image and accompanying text below for additional background information about the first e-mail message.]


Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 11:43:44 -0600
From: Liz Locke
Subject: [Fwd: and now, the jokes]
To: NEWFOLK@LISTSERV.TEMPLE.EDU

if they're all like this, i can handle it...

Christopher Locke wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Azzara
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 6:57AM
Subject: Fwd: non-violent solution

Has enough time lapsed for us to laugh?


"A Nonviolent Solution"

To the Taliban from the American people:

Give us Bin Laden, or we will take all of your women and send them to college.

From: Lisa Zimmerman
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 12:27:20 EDT
Subject: Fwd: Received from a friend [deleted headers indicate an earlier subject line was "Help weed out terrorism"]
To: rvhatha@bentley.unco.edu

 

Can I count on your support?


The President has asked that we unite for a common cause. Since the hard line Islamic people cannot stand nudity and consider it a sin to see a naked woman who is not their wife, tonight at 7:00 PM, all women should run out of their houses naked to help weed out the terrorists.

The United States appreciates your efforts, and applauds you.

God bless America.

From: Lisa Zimmerman
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 00:29:50 EDT [earliest send date listed in deleted headers: October 3, 2001]
Subject: Fwd: Fw: You will LOVE this idea!
To: rvhatha@bentley.unco.edu

Killing Osama bin Laden will only create a martyr.

Holding him prisoner will only inspire his comrades to take hostages to demand his release.

Therefore, we should do neither.

Let the Special Forces, Seals, Green Berets, etc., covertly catch him, secretly fly him to an undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform a complete sex change operation. Then return "her" to Afghanistan to live as a woman under the Taliban.

 

Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 15:13:18 -0700
From: Margie Wylie
Subject: Send Menopausal Women to Afghanistan
To: NEWFOLK@LISTSERV.TEMPLE.EDU

I'm not sure if this is considered folklore, but if you're anywhere near this stage in your life, it's funny as hell.

-Margie

This just in

Take all American women who are within five years of menopause - train us for a few weeks, outfit us with automatic weapons, grenades, gas masks, moisturizer with SPF15, Prozac, hormones, chocolate, and canned tuna - - - Drop us (parachuted, preferably) across the landscape of Afghanistan, and let us do what comes naturally.

Think about it. Our anger quotient alone, even when doing standard stuff like grocery shopping and paying bills, is formidable enough to make even armed men in turbans tremble. We've had our children, we would gladly suffer or die to protect them and their future. We'd like to get away from our husbands, if they haven't left already. And for those of us who are single, the prospect of finding a good man with whom to share life is about as likely as being struck by lightning.

We have nothing to lose. We've survived the water diet, the protein diet, the carbohydrate diet, and the grapefruit diet in gyms and saunas across America and never lost a pound. We can easily survive months in the hostile terrain of Afghanistan with no food at all! We've spent years tracking down our husbands or lovers in bars, hardware stores, or sporting events - - - finding bin Laden in some cave will be no problem.

Uniting all the warring tribes of Afghanistan in a new government? Oh, please - - - we've planned the seating arrangements for in-laws and extended families at Thanksgiving dinners for years. We understand tribal warfare.

Between us, we've divorced enough husbands to know every trick there is for how they hide, launder, or cover up bank accounts and money sources. We know how to find that money and we know how to seize it, with or without the
government's help!

Let us go and fight. The Taliban hates women. Imagine their terror as we crawl like ants with hot-flashes over their godforsaken terrain.

I'm going to write my Congresswoman. You should, too!

From: Mike and Tama Greenhagen
To: "'rvhatha@unco.edu'"
Subject: forward e-lore
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 00:27:03 -0600

[earliest send date in deleted header: October 3, 2001]

I received this editorial cartoon as an e-mail attachment from Tama Dean-Greenhagen on October 8, 2001, though it had been circulating among previous recipients since at least October 3rd. The wording is identical to the language in the first text message, above, which was circulating at least as early as September 28th. The editorial cartoon, by John Deering, first appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on September 20, 2001.

 

 
It's always a "chicken and egg" dilemma to try and determine which came first: the "folk" variant (the text e-lore) or the "official" print version, and of course, there's always the possibility of polygenesis (i.e., that several people started circulating similar ideas around the same time). In this case, though, the September 20th publication date of the original cartoon suggests that it likely inspired the text version, above.