Sexism and Women in Comedy
I recently read an article from a comedian that emphasized a level of disgust for the under-representation of females in a comedy showcase. This individual proposed that 50% of the show should have consisted of female comedians. Should that truly be the case?
The answer should be unanimously; Yes! This is a completely fair judgement, and represents an ideal equality that is due. After all, 50% of the world’s population does consist of women. Demand is also equal to, if not greater for females in comedy, so why don’t we see more of them on TV or in Clubs?
Currently, in most cities and in most clubs, female representation is about 30%. For every 10 comedians that come through a venue, three of them are female. This can vary depending on where you live of course. If you have the pleasure of living in one of those, thankfully dwindling, but still very real cities that think a woman’s place shouldn’t extend outside of the kitchen, you may notice an absence in female comedians at your local shithole, redneck bar. Whereas, more liberal cities, (which also happen to have the largest abundance of gigs) tend to balance this out, but it still averages about 30%.
There’s also a stigma that female comedians, on average, provide a sub par performance in contrast to their male counterparts. It is not uncommon to find someone who generally dislikes female comedians, and it is not isolated to only males. Even when an audience member is faced with the realization that there are indeed funny females, their compliments come in the form of veiled insults.
“I normally HATE female comedians, but you were funny!” That kind of dumb bullshit.
At this point, I am not saying anything that many of you don’t already know. Many men are misogynistic, skeevy assholes who objectify and dehumanize women. It is disgusting and unwarranted and it should end… BUT, it is not the reason why female comedians have a tarnished reputation of quality and are under-represented in clubs and media. Sexism may certainly play a part in this, but it is not wholly responsible.
The quality-to-garbage ratio is the same among all comedians and I don’t just mean those you see on TV. There are tons of comedians, from host to headliner. Out of every 10 “Comedians”, nine of them range from, “Meh, Alright” to “Who the Fuck Gave That Person a Microphone?”. White, black, gay, male, female, etc… whatever sub-genre of human being you are technically classified as, you will find this great-to-awful ratio roughly holds true. Depressingly, it is probably much lower than that, but for simplicity’s sake, we’ll keep it at 10%.
Let me emphasize this as clearly as possible before proceeding. I believe that the RATIO of great, quality Comedians is EQUAL for both males and females.
I apologize for being so repetitive, but I want to make my intentions clear. I am looking at the issue objectively, from statistics alone, and merely propose a hypothesis to the stigma that plagues female comedians.
Here we go;
Female Comedians, as I stated before, have a 30% representation in media and clubs. The problem is, Women only make up 10% of the comedy community as a whole. There aren’t that many females who decide to start doing comedy to begin with. Female comedians actually have one of the largest representation per comedian ratios, which is actually where the issue lies.
Let’s say the comedy community consisted of only 100 comedians, 90 of which are Male, 10 Female. Now, let’s say that there are a total of 10 gigs available for them all. This should be fine, because like I said before, only about 10% of all Comedians are at a quality level that is worth watching. That means nine quality men, and one quality woman. Audiences want to see more females though, and clubs and media want to oblige. So the ratio starts to slant. Now there are seven quality males, one quality female and two sub-par female acts.
This hurts the reputation of female comedians. The quality females suffer because, people are less willing to gamble on shows with women. Plus it stunts the growth of the sub-par comedians. Instead of incubating for the appropriate amount of time to potentially become a good comedian, they’re thrown into the business with a delusional sense of self-worth, flailing about, unknowingly inflicting damage to the feminine cause… AM I RIGHT, LADIES!?
Obviously, this is a simplified view of the whole thing. There are more than enough god awful male comedians that make it through, just like there are plenty of fantastic comedians of both sexes that never get noticed. The ratio of good-to-bad representation is more in men’s favor though, because there are simply, more of them. There are NOT “Just as many female comedians as there are male!”, therefore it is statistically improbable that there are “Just as many GOOD female comedians as there are male!”.
To believe that would be inherently sexist. It implies that the quality of female performance far exceeds that of their male counterparts. Speaking essentially as a sexless robot, I don’t believe that’s true.
My proposition isn’t that female comedians aren’t as funny on average because they are females. My proposition is that female comedians aren’t as funny on average because there simply isn’t as many of them. The cream rises to the top for women as well, there just isn’t as much milk. If the analogy of milk sounds inherently sexist, it was not intended. It was just a lot easier than drawing parallels to those old timey gold prospectors.
So what’s the solution? Well, we could scale female representation down to accurately depict their presence in the industry, but I don’t want that. I quite like female comedians. Maria Bamford is constantly in the running for 1st pick on my fantasy comedian roster. I would list more names, but I feel that would come off as a “I can’t be racist, I have black friends” kind of defense.
No, the solution is MORE FEMALE COMEDIANS! More of you need to get out there and start making with the jokes. I don’t know why so few women show interest in the industry. There is a shit ton of demand for you and there is more than enough evidence that, despite your vagina and the beliefs of ignorant mouth-breathers, you can in fact, be funny.
I want EVERY group to have the greatest opportunity to produce the highest quality of comedy possible. The more milk the more delicious comedic cream for us all, and I’m well aware of the perceived innuendo one can draw from that statement.
I am completely open to debate on this one, and obviously can only speak from the penile perspective, so if there are unseen factors and details, I am more than happy to learn about them.
Plus Five Productions 