Someone should fire me, and preferably a man. 

I initially applied as a humor writer for The Wire with the aim of joining the feminist cause, challenging the long-running stereotype that women aren’t funny. However, given my humorless existence at the time, the likelihood of being hired was slim. I wasn’t known for being funny; I was simply a woman. But I secured the job, likely due to gender diversity hiring.

I’ve since found that life full of humor has horrifically flipped my life around. I’ll be at a party, for instance, and rather than standing in place, nodding my head and hoping someone from the fraternity will ask me to grab a broom for the cleanup after-party, I find myself engaging in conversation with men who seem to find my humor appealing.

Suddenly, a different guy overhears, then another and another. I find myself in a predicament where I can’t turn off the humor, and I become swarmed by an unsolicited group of guys, joined by their army of wingmen, to ask for my Snap.

Switching off the humor when I’m not on the clock has turned out to be an impossible task that has done nothing for me but shift my focus away from my innate feminine responsibilities that I wholeheartedly miss. 

I long for the days when instead of distractions of humor and unwanted male attention, all I did was effortlessly manage feminine tasks. Back then, I felt as though Martha Stewart was smiling over me every time I reached for a mixer. Now, I’m holding a pen, cracking jokes instead of cracking eggs. My room is cluttered with laundry and dust bunnies, and I feel no motivation to attend to my household chores, as I waste my image and talents by hunching over my computer and trying to conjure up semi-witty lines that my male editor will help me polish. 

Through my time at The Wire, I’ve come to the realization that my purpose should not revolve around supporting this feminist cause but rather in rescuing women from it before they lose their humorless ignorance as I did, a mindset I miss almost as much as my kitchen.