Christopher Hitchens’s death, much like his life, provoked much discussion and reflection, as well as praise, sorrow, glee, homage-paying, and copious changing of Facebook profile pictures. Since Hitch died last Thursday, several writershave revisited his unwavering support for the Iraq War and his sexism.  Hitchens was as insistent and wrong about the absence of humor in women as he was the presence of WMDs in Iraq. Clearly, perpetuating the second lie has been more harmful, leading to war, deaths, debilitating injuries, trauma, economic and geopolitical disasters. But, since the debate over WMDs is finished, let’s discuss the myth that women aren’t funny, as immortalized in Hitch’s Vanity Fair article,”Why Women Aren’t Funny.”

Like Hitch did, I’ll use a combination of anecdotes and scientific studies to make my point. (Actually, I’ll cite twice as many studies as Hitch did. Before you get too excited about my exhaustive research, you should know that he only cited one.)