This is quite insightful. I was thinking that pranks are good when only done among equals. If there is already a power imbalance, as often the case with men and women, then the prank effectively functions to put someone "in their place" in the position of less power. That's a horrible and humiliating space to be. The most power any of us has in that case is to not laugh and walk very far away from the pranksters. It's a bad joke if no body laughs.
The age of crushes treating the objects of their affection terribly is fading, thank goodness. I lived in that era. I am glad our society is evolving in a positive direction in this case.
Thank you, Zina! Good point -- equality might be the best metric. I see all kinds of women pranking their partners on Facebook Reels (or Instagram). Whether the prank as a play for clicks or web traffic has changed the whole nature of practical jokes for the younger generation is another question! Is it really a prank if it's staged? 🤔
What a fun essay! It reminds me of high school friends who would say something mean, followed by “Just kidding!” And then you couldn’t be mad, even though the first thing they said was cruel!
Haha, yes. Although you can always be mad, can't you? Some things aren't funny even if they were ostensibly meant in jest. And it should be OK to say so.
What an ingenious approach to today's holiday! This takes me back to a favorite passage that I think appears in "Born for Love" by Maia Szalavitz and Bruce Perry, explaining why girls are so ferociously critical and sometimes mean to each other, especially in early puberty. The authors speculate that girls are winnowing the field of future helpers so that when childbirth lays us flat and vulnerable, the females close to us are genuinely supportive; the others we have cut out long since. They mean to recover so-called "mean" / "negative" girl behavior as something logical and protective. Where others would scold or correct mean girls, they encourage understanding. I love having this perspective as a parent!
It relates to what you say about daughters listening to their gut. Who can count the romances in which the female "comes around" and realizes she has misjudged either a male or another female? Good for you, teaching daughters to trust their instincts. (Szalavitz and Perry support you.)
If Szalavitz and Perry are right, female intolerance of male pranks might be a cousin of female intolerance for other females who will abandon, criticize, or otherwise weaken us when we are most vulnerable, in childbirth. Before we learn reverence in later life, our xx chromosomes might steer us toward people who have it and away from people who might not.
Thank you for this refreshing approach to a subject I had not thought about in this way.
This is really interesting, Tara. I'd never thought of instinctually vetting friends in that way, but it makes sense. I suppose hazing among men might stem from a similar root. If the young warrior can't take a little ribbing and humiliation, how is he going to stand up against the enemy... There are limits to those arguments, but I like the idea of avoiding people who will take advantage of vulnerability, and how women might do that more than men (I mean, seduction is a kind of prank, if viewed in a certain light?). There is a whole other side conversation about how girls learn to reflexively say they are sorry, which must also relate to that trope of "coming around" (not trusting the original instinct or thinking that the flaw lies within, not in the other).
Speaking of flaws within vs with the other, my western lit class just discussed My Antonia, Book II (Town), which has several examples of “hired girls” getting blamed for bad male behavior, as you know. That’s getting far from pranking but is right to the point of vulnerability.
Yes, indeed, although I love that Lena Lingard seems impervious to all this. The whole Ole and Lena scandal before she came to town is also hilarious! And there is a back story with the Benda illustrations, one of which features Lena.
But now that you mention it, there is a lot of pranking in these immigrant communities. You might say that Jim Burden pranks Wick Cutter in that awful scene? But now we're stretching the meaning of "prank" pretty far...
Thank you, very insightful. I wonder if all social interactions--even ones in which 'love' is involved--aren't fundamentally about power relations, and pranks/jokes (and the reactions to them) one interesting subset.
Yes, probably true. Kind of depressing to reduce everything to power, but as a social species with innate awareness of hierarchy it is probably part of our DNA. This is why I am drawn to the Quakers, because they explicitly reject hierarchy! Even then there are "elders" or "weighty Quakers," so the question of influence still applies. But the service and the basic tenets of that group are intentionally designed to give power to the group, not to individuals. Which makes me think that perhaps we are not prey to these innate power dynamics if we can intentionally and thoughtfully anticipate them?
This is a really interesting post and the first thing that comes to my mind is how glad I am that you have two girls! Children always teach us so much.
have you seen the social media trend of cracking an egg on the head of a kid? Some kids laugh like crazy and others are hugely upset. Honestly, I resonate with the girl who says, "that is not nice." I've never been fond of pranks or even playful insults. I don't think this goes back to men who betrayed my trust when I was young - rather, it's just not how I was raised. It wasn't how my family operated or communicated. In First or Second grade, there was a guy in an older class who regularly pulled my hair and gave me a difficult time. Finally, I kicked him. Between his legs. I had no idea this was a tender spot, can't say I even aimed for there. I had just had enough and finally fought back. He never bothered me again but that's when I first heard "oh, he was only bothering you b/c he liked you". And then I was apparently supposed to feel guilty for physically hurting him. Um...no. To this day, that still bothers me.
My sister once fell at a restaurant and took the entire table cloth and dishes with her. This is the only time I have ever laughed at someone when they've fallen (or something similar) and since my sister still mentions it once in a while, I still feel bad that my first reaction wasn't concern. Slapstick comedy is one thing but there is so much comedy based on physical (painful, even harmful) bloopers that I just can't watch. So not funny to me.
It might just be the way I'm wired. Maybe it's not a gender thing or based on an early experience. Unless, perhaps, it's based on an experience in another (past or concurrent) life. ;)
This is quite insightful. I was thinking that pranks are good when only done among equals. If there is already a power imbalance, as often the case with men and women, then the prank effectively functions to put someone "in their place" in the position of less power. That's a horrible and humiliating space to be. The most power any of us has in that case is to not laugh and walk very far away from the pranksters. It's a bad joke if no body laughs.
The age of crushes treating the objects of their affection terribly is fading, thank goodness. I lived in that era. I am glad our society is evolving in a positive direction in this case.
Thank you, Zina! Good point -- equality might be the best metric. I see all kinds of women pranking their partners on Facebook Reels (or Instagram). Whether the prank as a play for clicks or web traffic has changed the whole nature of practical jokes for the younger generation is another question! Is it really a prank if it's staged? 🤔
Maybe that would be a prank-genre performance. :-)
What a fun essay! It reminds me of high school friends who would say something mean, followed by “Just kidding!” And then you couldn’t be mad, even though the first thing they said was cruel!
Haha, yes. Although you can always be mad, can't you? Some things aren't funny even if they were ostensibly meant in jest. And it should be OK to say so.
What an ingenious approach to today's holiday! This takes me back to a favorite passage that I think appears in "Born for Love" by Maia Szalavitz and Bruce Perry, explaining why girls are so ferociously critical and sometimes mean to each other, especially in early puberty. The authors speculate that girls are winnowing the field of future helpers so that when childbirth lays us flat and vulnerable, the females close to us are genuinely supportive; the others we have cut out long since. They mean to recover so-called "mean" / "negative" girl behavior as something logical and protective. Where others would scold or correct mean girls, they encourage understanding. I love having this perspective as a parent!
It relates to what you say about daughters listening to their gut. Who can count the romances in which the female "comes around" and realizes she has misjudged either a male or another female? Good for you, teaching daughters to trust their instincts. (Szalavitz and Perry support you.)
If Szalavitz and Perry are right, female intolerance of male pranks might be a cousin of female intolerance for other females who will abandon, criticize, or otherwise weaken us when we are most vulnerable, in childbirth. Before we learn reverence in later life, our xx chromosomes might steer us toward people who have it and away from people who might not.
Thank you for this refreshing approach to a subject I had not thought about in this way.
This is really interesting, Tara. I'd never thought of instinctually vetting friends in that way, but it makes sense. I suppose hazing among men might stem from a similar root. If the young warrior can't take a little ribbing and humiliation, how is he going to stand up against the enemy... There are limits to those arguments, but I like the idea of avoiding people who will take advantage of vulnerability, and how women might do that more than men (I mean, seduction is a kind of prank, if viewed in a certain light?). There is a whole other side conversation about how girls learn to reflexively say they are sorry, which must also relate to that trope of "coming around" (not trusting the original instinct or thinking that the flaw lies within, not in the other).
Speaking of flaws within vs with the other, my western lit class just discussed My Antonia, Book II (Town), which has several examples of “hired girls” getting blamed for bad male behavior, as you know. That’s getting far from pranking but is right to the point of vulnerability.
Yes, indeed, although I love that Lena Lingard seems impervious to all this. The whole Ole and Lena scandal before she came to town is also hilarious! And there is a back story with the Benda illustrations, one of which features Lena.
But now that you mention it, there is a lot of pranking in these immigrant communities. You might say that Jim Burden pranks Wick Cutter in that awful scene? But now we're stretching the meaning of "prank" pretty far...
Thank you, very insightful. I wonder if all social interactions--even ones in which 'love' is involved--aren't fundamentally about power relations, and pranks/jokes (and the reactions to them) one interesting subset.
Yes, probably true. Kind of depressing to reduce everything to power, but as a social species with innate awareness of hierarchy it is probably part of our DNA. This is why I am drawn to the Quakers, because they explicitly reject hierarchy! Even then there are "elders" or "weighty Quakers," so the question of influence still applies. But the service and the basic tenets of that group are intentionally designed to give power to the group, not to individuals. Which makes me think that perhaps we are not prey to these innate power dynamics if we can intentionally and thoughtfully anticipate them?
Interesting, I wonder what jokes or pranks Quakers might favor?!
Hmmm. I'll have to observe closely!
In 1950's Iowa, in grades 1-?, we only threw snowballs (literally) at the girls we wanted to notice us. I think it worked.
You're proving my point, Bob! Thanks for reading :)
This is a really interesting post and the first thing that comes to my mind is how glad I am that you have two girls! Children always teach us so much.
have you seen the social media trend of cracking an egg on the head of a kid? Some kids laugh like crazy and others are hugely upset. Honestly, I resonate with the girl who says, "that is not nice." I've never been fond of pranks or even playful insults. I don't think this goes back to men who betrayed my trust when I was young - rather, it's just not how I was raised. It wasn't how my family operated or communicated. In First or Second grade, there was a guy in an older class who regularly pulled my hair and gave me a difficult time. Finally, I kicked him. Between his legs. I had no idea this was a tender spot, can't say I even aimed for there. I had just had enough and finally fought back. He never bothered me again but that's when I first heard "oh, he was only bothering you b/c he liked you". And then I was apparently supposed to feel guilty for physically hurting him. Um...no. To this day, that still bothers me.
My sister once fell at a restaurant and took the entire table cloth and dishes with her. This is the only time I have ever laughed at someone when they've fallen (or something similar) and since my sister still mentions it once in a while, I still feel bad that my first reaction wasn't concern. Slapstick comedy is one thing but there is so much comedy based on physical (painful, even harmful) bloopers that I just can't watch. So not funny to me.
It might just be the way I'm wired. Maybe it's not a gender thing or based on an early experience. Unless, perhaps, it's based on an experience in another (past or concurrent) life. ;)