It is well known that the stand-up comedy scene is a male-dominated space. Flying hard in the face of tons of evidence that female and other non-male identified comedians are incredibly witty and #herlarious, the old misogynist patriarchal adage that women are not funny continues to wield its power.
While I was in Wisconsin this felt like an ongoing face palm moment: what else could one possibly expect from the state that voted in Trump, succumbed to the anti-women rhetoric from Governor Scott Walker through a recall and a re-election, and had given rise to such anti-everything misers as Joseph McCarthy and, more recently and inexplicably, Paul Ryan? Cue my move to the Bay Area.
“…I don’t make jokes about my daily use of Claritin to keep my sinuses clear. Your pot jokes are as exciting as my hormone replacement therapy…”
With the progressive LGBTQ+ history of the great city of San Francisco a short drive away and nestled in the innovative and creative hub that is Silicon Valley, I was looking forward to a forward looking and pioneering stand-up environment. Sadly and bizarrely, I was somewhat disappointed. While there are plenty of brilliant and extremely funny comics of all genders here, the scene nevertheless is dominated in terms of numbers by cis-men under the age of 30, the bulk of whose repertoire revolves around sex with women and intoxicants (let’s call them the boner and stoner comedians). Both of these topics are potentially funny, but they do not require an enormous amount of originality and get a little old when heard over and over and over again. Also, folx, please note: going on and on about your use of marijuana in a state where cannabis for recreational use is actually legal is not cutting edge or revolutionary. I don’t make jokes about my daily use of Claritin to keep my sinuses clear. Your pot jokes are as exciting as my hormone replacement therapy, which is to say not at all.
The two main large scale comedy venues in the area have a male to female performer ratio of approximately 15:1. If you put that in money terms, that’s comparable to women earning 7 cents to the male dollar. Let that sink in. If you want to see a female-identified comic in the next few months, you’ve got to catch Taylor Tomlinson at the end of January (and believe me, I will!) or wait til the middle of March for the Pump & Dump show. There is not one single female performer in the month of February in either of the South Bay main comedy venues. So in spite of all its progressiveness and cool, the scene has a long way to go here as elsewhere. The good news is that at the small venue level there are organizers who are actively trying to change the culture and bring more women and woman-identified comedians to the stage.
“There is not one single female performer in the month of February in either of the South Bay main comedy venues. “
In the meantime I am trying to get to as many open mics as is possible with a 13-year old at home and traffic that is almost legendary. Fortunately, many open mics have a generous pre-sign option that is, by design or good fortune, particularly helpful to parents and other caregivers who simply cannot leave home in time to negotiate traffic to get to an open mic in time for sign up. Some open mics have LGBTQ+ and/or women-identified comics only nights or preferential sign up. In other words, while the large venue bookers may not yet have realized how many lady laughs a lady comic can get, the grassroots folx are trying hard to create a more level playing ground. We are a ways off of success, but as long as female comics keep coming 😉 there is hope for us yet.
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