Christopher Hitchens: Sexist or Prankster?

Why Women Aren’t Funny. The title alone of Christopher Hitchens’ essay is a provocation. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but Hitchens’ lack of humility and support for his claims leads me to believe that his argument is insincere, that he is simply trying to test people’s boiling points. Given the number of students upset by the article, he seems to have succeeded.

Hitchens puts the gross in gross generalizations. Take this passage, for example: 

            Perhaps not by coincidence, battered as they are by motherfucking nature, men tend to refer to life itself as a bitch. Whereas women, bless their tender hearts, would prefer that life be fair, and even sweet, rather than the sordid mess it actually is.

I find it difficult to believe that a highly educated, literary mind like Hitchens’ would accept these blatant stereotypes as truth. Therefore, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt; I don’t think his argument is genuine, but rather a satire of sexism. Just look at his sense of rhetorical strategy. For example, the phrase "Women, bless their tender hearts" suggests a kind of comical or satirical edge.

By sensationalizing stereotypes and “acting” as a sexist in order to satirize sexism, Hitchens is a prankster. As Christina Harold writes in Pranking Rhetoric: “Culture Jamming” as Media Activism, this kind of stylistic layering or exaggeration can be used to render qualitative change (196). I’m not sure Hitchens is actually trying to render “qualitative” change. He seems to simply be engaging in a mischievous experiment to see if people will argue with him when he posits that women are generally unfunny. People obviously disagree with him, so it’s a bit of a silly experiment. But the fact that many people don’t realize it’s an experiment proves how covert a commentary like his can be.