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In reply to the discussion: Fare Thee Well, DU. [View all]LeftOfSelf-Centered
(776 posts)The joke is not about women always wanting to talk about their baggage at all (after all, she only mentioned she used to be afraid of flying, as far as "baggage" goes that's not even carry-on).
It's all about Superman jumping to conclusions, and completely dismissing a priori whatever the woman was going to tell him, de facto saying that because she was a woman whatever she was going to say was not worth listening to. An attitude that many men held in the era that the comic is styled after, and that some still hold to this day. And on top of that he is so self-satisfied with his own "joke" that he doesn't even notice that he dropped the woman while laughing self-servingly.
So the joke is not at the expense of the woman, but at the expense of Superman and the attitudes and opinions he represents in this cartoon. Of course I can't look into the cartoonist's mind, but that's the message I got from it.
So I interpreted the joke as actually calling out sexism, and not making light of it.