2010-02-08
Explanation
This comic shows a group of battle-hardened soldiers huddled in a trench or bunker, with explosions visible in the background. One soldier says: "I never thought anyone could be so vicious!" Another responds with a grim explanation: "Don'''t you get it? They spend their entire childhood in needless psychological cruelty toward each other, until by the end of adolescence there'''s nothing left but cold calculation." The caption below reads: "The war against women was lost quickly."
The joke takes the form of a war movie trope -- soldiers in a foxhole trying to understand their terrifyingly effective enemy -- and reveals that the enemy is women. The "explanation" for why they are such formidable opponents is a darkly humorous take on the stereotype that girls and women engage in intense social and psychological warfare with each other throughout childhood and adolescence. The implication is that years of navigating complex social hierarchies, cliques, and interpersonal manipulation have made women far more psychologically ruthless than men, who are hopelessly outmatched in an actual conflict.
The votey shows two men in a post-war setting. One asks "How'''d the war start?" and the other (wearing an eyepatch, suggesting he'''s a war veteran) replies: "One too many '''that'''s what she said''' jokes." This provides the casus belli for the gender war: men finally pushed women over the edge with one too many juvenile sexual innuendo jokes, leading to a conflict the men were doomed to lose.