“I am a feminist but...”: affects, humor and identification in The Guilty Feminist

Abstract

The goal of this article is to examine the affects that circulate in the comedy podcast The Guilty Feminist in order to determine what sort of feminist community emerges in the encounter between the joke of the comedians and the response of the audience. This podcast is part of a new generation of feminist humor that makes fun of the way we are, and think we ought to be, feminists. The article explores those funny situations that generate a favorable response in the audience and the irruption, at times, of awkward silences and gestures of disapproval. The goal is to understand the process of identification that these situations create and that produce a feminist community based on feelings such as guilt, shame, awkwardness and frustration.