Gender stereotypes depicted in online sexist jokes

This research aimed to explore gender stereotypes depicted in online sexist jokes collected from laughfactory.com. Linguistically speaking, jokes as a subtype of humour have become a common phenomenon in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, not all jokes can bring positive vibes for everyone. Yet, these forms of jokes are still commonly found, especially on the Internet. Some online sources, including websites of jokes, present a lot of collections of jokes for fun, but a number of the jokes are categorized as sexist jokes, which might also be regarded as offensive in a certain context. Data were collected from the laughfactory.com website and then were analysed by using the three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH). Results showed that the majority of the humours observed were targeted at women (90%) and a small number was targeted at men (10%). Women were stereotyped as sexual objects, emotionally expressive beings, homemakers, being talkative, being stupid or brainless, and belonging to a lower class than men. Men, on the other hand, were stereotyped as worse than women.