Is self-deprecation different when men use it?

I come from a long line of self-deprecating women.

My sense of humor is closely modeled after my mother’s, whose own sense of humor was modeled after her mother’s. It’s a personality trait I have honed since childhood – growing up, I envied that underhanded, flippant confidence that came so naturally to my mom. I knew that if I wanted to abandon my own shy and insecure personality, then I needed to pillow it with some kind of charisma.

Lo and behold, it worked. You can poke at my insecurities with a stick and I’ll spring into action, eyes blazing, armed with an arsenal of jokes at my own expense. I’ll tease myself better than anyone – you’ll never beat me at my own game.

Two generations of self-deprecators

But self-deprecation is a multifaceted trait in and of itself. Vocabulary.com explains both sides: “being self-deprecating is usually considered a good trait, a quality of someone with a wry sense of humor. When being self-deprecating goes too far, it can become self-loathing and self-sabotaging, which are less amusing forms of putting yourself down.”

And it’s true – one of my personal battles involves holding myself accountable when I start to self-deprecate in excess. It’s a defense mechanism that can turn into a crutch for insecurities rather than the backhanded empowerment I want it to be.

I was especially cognizant of this when I started to wonder if self-deprecation might be gendered. More often than not, conversations with my female friends involved jokes at our own expense, while my male friends tended to make more jokes at each other’s expense.

I dug a little deeper. A Guardian article revealed that Dr. Judith Baxter, a linguistics professor at Aston University, conducted an eighteen-month study about men’s and women’s speech patterns in the workplace. Analysis of over 600,000 words during fourteen meetings found significant differences in the humor used by members of each gender. About 80% of humor used by men was classified as “witticisms and banter,” which was received positively with laughter about 90% of the time. But when women used humor, about 70% of it was considered to be self-deprecating, and 80% of the time it was received in silence.

What the hell? I always thought that my tendency to self-deprecate was a noble art, studied carefully by the likes of Conan O’Brien and John Oliver! Were these statistics telling me that I just fell into yet another societal construct placed on me by my gender? Are the rumors true? Are women not funny? Is this why, when I binge-watch stand-up comedy on YouTube, female comics exist only in the extreme minority?

And how, god forbid, might this affect me in professional situations like Dr. Baxter’s study?

As I continued my foray into the complicated Google universe, I noticed something disturbing about my Google searches themselves – when I googled “women and self-deprecation,” the top three article results had more negative connotations, for example “How Self-Deprecation Can Backfire, “When Self Deprecation Goes Too Far” and “Women Take to Self Deprecation a Bit Too Well.”

But my google search for “men and self deprecation” yielded an entire different field of articles. The top three results were titled “Self deprecation the key to the art of seduction,” “How Guys Use Self-Deprecation Against You” and “Self-Deprecating Humor… Is it Attractive?”

Is self-deprecation different when men use it? A 2008 study at the University of New Mexico revealed that, when participants of both genders ranked their attraction to opposite-sex people of varying levels of status,  “self-deprecating humor by high-status presenters (but not low-status presenters) increased long-term attractiveness for both sexes.” “High-status” presenters were individuals having a high GPA, owning a car, etc., and “low-status” presenters were those having a low GPA, owning a bike, and so on.

So based on this study, it might not have as much to do with the amount that women self-deprecate compared to men, as I initially thought, but more to do with someone’s perceived status of themselves. Dr. Charis Thompson, a professor and chair of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said:

“[It] sounds like being (taken to be) lower status in general… [assuming this applies] across gender, race, ethnicity, class, disability, religion – tends to make self-deprecation seem confirmatory of that person’s lower status (and thus not funny / charming / attractive), whereas when higher status people use it, it suggests having a good character, which is attractive – something like being secure enough and sure enough of everyone’s high opinion to laugh at oneself.

“This would be an important conclusion, if generally true, and would suggest that one should be strategic about it – that self-deprecation is a good thing when one is among those perceived as being of equal or lower status but that one should resist it as much as possible when among those who are taken to be (taking themselves to be) higher status.”

It follows that, with men in domineering positions societally or professionally, they may be disposed to use self-deprecation more to their advantage than women in certain situations. That would explain why the Baxter study found that women’s self deprecation in the workplace backfired, because their relatively recent addition to the workforce places them on a generally lower corporate rung than men. Essentially, self-deprecation might bring attention to their inferiority, and the humor would come off as pining or weak.

Or, in terms of comedy, female comics are so outnumbered that their self-deprecation may be considered a borderline pathetic testament to their lower status, rather than the humble or charming effect provided by a higher-status individual.

Importantly, using self-deprecation to one’s advantage may not necessarily vary only in regards to gender, but rather it expands into more of a status issue across gender, race, religion, ethnicity, disability, class, etc. Yes, women’s self-deprecating jokes may fall flat more than men’s, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Alright, now that we’ve cleared that up, how does this information affect me, or women in general

My self-deprecation in action

I suppose it’s an issue of awareness – if I were to whip out some self-deprecating knee-slapper in a professional setting with male colleagues, it could be to my detriment. It could point out my weaknesses or present me as insecure and inferior. But in a room of all or mostly females, or in a Tab article where I’ve established myself as a damn expert on this stuff, or in a setting where I trust that most of my friends don’t need me to prove myself to them… a self-deprecating joke might be considered a sign of humility or security in myself.

So go forth, self-deprecators of the world, and use this gift thoughtfully. Yes, self-deprecation in certain situations may disadvantage  you, but if used appropriately in settings where you already feel confident, it’s a good means of relating to those around you.