I spent most of the Homecoming Assembly wishing I could burst into the gym waving a purple and white flag, wearing only a cape and shorts. Instead, I watched longingly as several junior boys did exactly that.

I could have burst into the gym like that. But I would have gotten detention for indecent exposure. Plus, I wouldn’t have gotten as many laughs. I’m not a boy.

If I were a boy, I would have been born with two built-in comic opportunities. All boys are. To get laughs, they simply strip or cross-dress*.

Girls can strip and cross-dress as well as boys, if not better. The problem is that equal behaviors elicit unequal reactions. When guys strip, people laugh. When girls strip, people avert their eyes or place their coats over their laps.

You’d think cross-dressing might elicit a more equal response. You’d be wrong. When guys dress as girls, people laugh. But when girls dress as guys, people call it “progressive.” Thanks a lot, feminists.

Last year, I took part in the Musical Revue, a medley of choreographed musical numbers directed by Carol Burton. The program included two all-boys numbers. During the first, the boys wore dresses while singing “I Feel Pretty,” thus tapping into one built-in comedy option. Then they stripped – aloha, other built-in comedy option – and performed the “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” from Mulan in menswear, twirling 10-foot bamboo poles.

The girls had their own songs, too. We stomped angrily during “America,” from West Side Story. Later, we skipped onto the stage in flowing dresses and sang a French ballad. The audience clapped reverently after both songs. A few people even laughed a little after “America.” But the fact of the matter is, sixty girls listing the pros and cons of living in the U.S. doesn’t hold a candle to ten boys cavorting around the stage in frocks.

It’s almost too easy for boys to make people laugh with their built-in jokes. Consequently, boys often rest on their comedy laurels. For instance, every year, prom comes around and the senior guys get to show off how creative and funny they are in the ways they ask girls to be their dates. So, they just take off their shirts and paint “P-R-O-M” on their bodies, or take off their shirts and sing a song about prom, or get all their friends to take off their shirts and run into some girl’s classroom screaming “PROM!!”

Wow, how original and surprising.

It’s not that I want boys to stop cross-dressing and stripping at school. I love the boys’ swim team. However, the exclusive overuse and abuse of the same two jokes leaves everyone else wondering what boys would do without those two jokes.

Both genders have equal potential to be smart; therefore, both genders have equal potential to be funny, since purposeful joking requires brainpower. And therefore, it doesn’t make sense that our culture and school have relegated women to the passive roles in humorous situations. We buy tickets to see romantic comedies in which women are stereotyped prizes for men to win with their hilarious personalities; we sit for hours in a hot gym during assemblies to observe boys experiencing near-liberation in Speedos; and every Valentine’s Day, we look forward to a tradition in which the Messenger Boy Band members dance their hearts out while girls can only watch, steeped in deepest despair and envy.

Girls may get equal money for sports and equal treatment in the classroom, but they don’t get equal credit or equal opportunities for being funny. That needs to stop. For every George Bush, there’s a Sarah Palin, and for every Jon Stewart, there’s a Tina Fey. As a culture and a school, we need to lol our way to recognizing girls and boys as the equal comedians that they are. Ha. Ha. Ha.

*In some situations, boys stripping or cross-dressing isn’t funny at all and can even be sexy. However, the behaviors are common comic strategies.