I am a member of a listserv email group as a result of a summer program that I participated in following my first year of law school. Alumni of the program can email the group to pontificate and debate a range of topics from politics to religion to the law to race relations. Basically anything. Most of the time, the discussions are highly nuanced and, as far as I'm concerned, quite tedious. To be perfectly frank, I rarely ever read this stuff.
However, around Valentine's Day, this blog's own Daniel Rah sent out a very humorous email about Josh Harris and woosy Christian boys (sorry, Daniel, for the oversimplification of your email). This sparked a long chain of emails. Many guys wrote funny quips and anecdotes. The girls, in contrast, were ridiculously serious and strikingly unfunny.
This led Mr. Rah and I to renew a discussion that we have had before. The big question is: Why is it that girls are so much less funny than boys?
I know this is kind of a broad generalization. I do know a handful of funny girls. But, they are a rarity while almost every single guy I know is funny. Any table of high school boys is entertaining. A dorm room with a handful of college boys will be rolling in laughter. Girls ... not so much. Perhaps it's genetic. Perhaps all that natural nurturing instinct blocks out any potential humor. I really don't know. Can anyone out there shed some light on this?
