Letters to the Editor
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Hitchens may be right, sort of
Hitchens, bless his heart, got something right here (maybe why it got under your skin), but possibly not in a way he intended. At its root, humor appears to have developed as a way to orchestrate group cohesion at the expense of a “victim”: there’s a lot of eye contact, laughter carries feelings of relief and safety, and when effective a victim is often humiliated in a way that constitutes aggression with real consequences. The understanding generated is “We’re all together and OK, but the butts of these jokes definitely are not OK, are not a part of this group, are our enemies.”
If humor evolved in patriarchal groups along with male propensities toward aggression, power, manipulation, social control and conformity, then it would make perfect sense that males are more predisposed toward competently performing this behavior, especially when a victim is involved. And if performance of humor is (unconsciously) perceived as a behavior conferring power and control, males would be threatened by females capable of using it, just as they are of females with higher perceived intelligence or status.
So if women are less predisposed to be adept at male humor, it’s likely because they are less predisposed toward social control and conformity, power, and aggression. A male taking that difference as a credit to his gender may ultimately be the butt of his own joke.