I’m a feminist and I’ve always found that joke funny.
Yes and yes. The implication is that the last thing in the world you’d want is your mother knowing you’re gay. That’s offensive to someone who’s out, not so much to someone who’s closeted.
But still funny.
The version I heard first was, “How many Harvard girls does it take to change a lightbulb?” and the answer was “That’s Radcliffe, that’s women, and that’s not funny!”
I think it’s a good example of a joke that’s both very-well constructed and also kind of an asshole joke: it was presumably used to marginalize rich white women who were trying to achieve parity with rich white men.
Also, with the Radcliff bit, a joke that needs explanation.
I won’t presume to speak for LGBTQ Dopers, but yes, back when this joke was current, I perceived it as offensive. For one thing, it made light of a disease that was then ravaging the gay community (even if, in my innocence, I did not know how badly). It also relies on the assumption that homosexuality is a shameful condition that a gay man should go to ridiculous lengths (like trying to prove he’s Haitian) to deny. It’s by no means the ugliest AIDS joke I heard - some of which weren’t even redeemed by any humor - but it’s still homophobic. Or at least, so it seems to me.
I laughed.
I always liked:
How do you identify a Feminist bookstore?
No Humor section.
Nowadays kids would ask “What’s a bookstore?”
I dunno… The AIDS/Haitian joke just relies on the fact that homosexuality is something that a person would want to hide, not that it’s something they should want to hide. And in the days when gays were persecuted so much more than now, there was lots of reason to want to hide it.
Another one from Mary Tyler Moore.
Mary sent an article about her grandfather to Reader’s Digest. She got a letter back from them, but was too nervous to open it. Murray declined, so she asked Ted. He took his time opening the envelope, and she yelled at him to hurry. He then held the envelope up to his forehead and said “And the answer is…”
That’s a reference to Carnac the Magnificent, a bit Johnny Carson did on The Tonight Show.
They turned her down.
Hell, the whole idea of sending contributions to the Reader’s Digest. Is that like a blog? Who reads blogs these days?
Me. Not lots of them; but some.
Of course, I post on messageboards, too –
Who reads these days?
Nowadays everyone just communicates by emoji.
I do that in person, too.
“So, beach ball blind monkey avocado scary clown?”
Indeed, people write compose entire stories with emojis. Just google emoji stories to find plenty.
It was the 
of 
It was the 
of
Sorry, I had to do five.
Anybody gets this one, I’ll buy them a lobster dinner at Scott’s the next time I’m in London:
Q: What are N, O, and P?
A: Mary Beth Whitehead’s next three kids.
Had to look it up Baby M - Wikipedia