• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
East Anglia Bylines
  • HOME
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Health
    • Welfare
    • World
    Stephen Toope, Vice Chancellor Cambridge

    Lack of access to EU funding could lead to “brain drain” – Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

    Owners of the wooden Dutch built yacht ordered to leave the UK.

    Soviet-style border force order Dutch couple to abandon sailing holiday and go home

    A&E

    Crisis looming for Southend Hospital and the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust

    Luton town hall

    Luton Deputy Mayor regrets Covid breach

    Liz Truss

    EU taking legal action against UK over Northern Ireland protocol: how did we get here?

    Rook

    Northern Ireland Protocol Bill results in Cambridge lab losing its EU funding

    17 May BPI occupation

    BP hypocrisy on climate challenged by Cambridge sit-in

    People in masks

    Eight changes the world needs to make to live with COVID

    Queen Elizabeth II Crossing

    Anxiety grows over viability of planned Lower Thames Crossing

    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    Stapleford Granary concert hall

    July classical events at Stapleford Granary, Cambridge

    Suffolk SketchFest is back

    Traditional beers by the Brentwood Brewing Company.

    Brentwood’s own craft beer company

    People in masks

    Eight changes the world needs to make to live with COVID

    Norwich Floods in 1912: handing a loaf to a flooded-out cottager

    Spectre of 1953 looms as East Anglia faces flood warnings

    University of East Anglia. Photo by Michael John Button via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

    A civic university for the East

    Southend Section 60 map

    Police issue Dispersal Order in Southend

    Ukraine wins Eurovision 2022

    Sam Ryder helps Eurovision’s possible return to the UK

    Robert Walpole

    Walpole: When did the end game begin?

    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • All
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    RMT Ipswich Branch

    Mick Lynch and a new wave of trade unionists

    Traditional beers by the Brentwood Brewing Company.

    Brentwood’s own craft beer company

    Sunak & Johnson

    The economics of the government’s pay disputes don’t stack

    Queen Elizabeth II Crossing

    Anxiety grows over viability of planned Lower Thames Crossing

    Rishi Sunak

    There is a solution to public sector pay disputes if the government wants to find one

    'For sale' boards.

    Housing Association “Right to Buy” proposal is ‘just wrong’ say experts

    East Anglia One windfarm

    One in three Suffolk manufacturing jobs lost since Tories came to power

    Foodbank parcels

    Hunger crisis: is it a national emergency?

    Mortgage debt.

    Sub-prime from Hollywood farce comes to UK housing

    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • All
    • Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
    Hedgehog

    Crisis as falling volunteer numbers threaten Norfolk hedgehogs with potential extinction

    Stephen Toope, Vice Chancellor Cambridge

    Lack of access to EU funding could lead to “brain drain” – Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

    Fuel pumps

    Frustration at the cost of fuel sees protests returned to East Anglia

    Saffron Walden turf maze

    Essex town fighting health threat of poor air quality

    Latton Island campaigners

    Rich and poor dispute new Essex river crossing

    Owners of the wooden Dutch built yacht ordered to leave the UK.

    Soviet-style border force order Dutch couple to abandon sailing holiday and go home

    Fertiliser spreading

    Fertiliser – Where there’s muck…

    Stapleford Granary concert hall

    July classical events at Stapleford Granary, Cambridge

    A&E

    Crisis looming for Southend Hospital and the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust

    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Health
    • Welfare
    • World
    Stephen Toope, Vice Chancellor Cambridge

    Lack of access to EU funding could lead to “brain drain” – Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

    Owners of the wooden Dutch built yacht ordered to leave the UK.

    Soviet-style border force order Dutch couple to abandon sailing holiday and go home

    A&E

    Crisis looming for Southend Hospital and the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust

    Luton town hall

    Luton Deputy Mayor regrets Covid breach

    Liz Truss

    EU taking legal action against UK over Northern Ireland protocol: how did we get here?

    Rook

    Northern Ireland Protocol Bill results in Cambridge lab losing its EU funding

    17 May BPI occupation

    BP hypocrisy on climate challenged by Cambridge sit-in

    People in masks

    Eight changes the world needs to make to live with COVID

    Queen Elizabeth II Crossing

    Anxiety grows over viability of planned Lower Thames Crossing

    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    Stapleford Granary concert hall

    July classical events at Stapleford Granary, Cambridge

    Suffolk SketchFest is back

    Traditional beers by the Brentwood Brewing Company.

    Brentwood’s own craft beer company

    People in masks

    Eight changes the world needs to make to live with COVID

    Norwich Floods in 1912: handing a loaf to a flooded-out cottager

    Spectre of 1953 looms as East Anglia faces flood warnings

    University of East Anglia. Photo by Michael John Button via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

    A civic university for the East

    Southend Section 60 map

    Police issue Dispersal Order in Southend

    Ukraine wins Eurovision 2022

    Sam Ryder helps Eurovision’s possible return to the UK

    Robert Walpole

    Walpole: When did the end game begin?

    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • All
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    RMT Ipswich Branch

    Mick Lynch and a new wave of trade unionists

    Traditional beers by the Brentwood Brewing Company.

    Brentwood’s own craft beer company

    Sunak & Johnson

    The economics of the government’s pay disputes don’t stack

    Queen Elizabeth II Crossing

    Anxiety grows over viability of planned Lower Thames Crossing

    Rishi Sunak

    There is a solution to public sector pay disputes if the government wants to find one

    'For sale' boards.

    Housing Association “Right to Buy” proposal is ‘just wrong’ say experts

    East Anglia One windfarm

    One in three Suffolk manufacturing jobs lost since Tories came to power

    Foodbank parcels

    Hunger crisis: is it a national emergency?

    Mortgage debt.

    Sub-prime from Hollywood farce comes to UK housing

    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • All
    • Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
    Hedgehog

    Crisis as falling volunteer numbers threaten Norfolk hedgehogs with potential extinction

    Stephen Toope, Vice Chancellor Cambridge

    Lack of access to EU funding could lead to “brain drain” – Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

    Fuel pumps

    Frustration at the cost of fuel sees protests returned to East Anglia

    Saffron Walden turf maze

    Essex town fighting health threat of poor air quality

    Latton Island campaigners

    Rich and poor dispute new Essex river crossing

    Owners of the wooden Dutch built yacht ordered to leave the UK.

    Soviet-style border force order Dutch couple to abandon sailing holiday and go home

    Fertiliser spreading

    Fertiliser – Where there’s muck…

    Stapleford Granary concert hall

    July classical events at Stapleford Granary, Cambridge

    A&E

    Crisis looming for Southend Hospital and the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust

    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series
No Result
View All Result
East Anglia Bylines
No Result
View All Result

Why are women underrepresented in comedy?

Why aren't there more women in comedy given half the population is female? Women are given a harder time in clubs. Could that put them off?

Kathryn WatersbyKathryn Waters
March 3, 2022
in Activism, Anglia, Culture, Humour, UK
Sara Pascoe

Sara Pascoe. Photo by Raph_PH via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

International Women’s Day provides us with the opportunity to reflect on how far women have come in terms of their representation and visibility. This includes within all branches of the arts and entertainment.

Essex and the East of England are not short of excellent female comics. Then why are so many comedy bills and TV panels so ‘boy’ heavy?

If you watch or listen to any TV or radio quiz show with comics, you’ll find that most guests (and hosts) are male. Female comics often mention this either during the shows themselves or in interviews. A ‘token’ female may be brilliantly funny and sharp, but still a bit out of place in the ‘boys’ club’ of the panel show. The ratio of male to female comics is slowly changing.

Why the embarrassingly low representation of what is, after all, half of the population of earth?

Invisible women

This world of the ‘default male’, is explored in Caroline Criado Perez’s insightful Sunday Times bestseller ‘Invisible Women’. What do women need to do to make it in comedy? Do they need to ‘be more like men’ (what Criado Perez calls the ‘Henry Higgins Effect’) or is the female experience a rich source of comedy material which stands up on its own?

Are those female comics from Essex and the East of England — Sara Pascoe, Ellie Taylor and Esther Manito…. so funny because they’re so uninhibited? They are not ‘ladylike’, but they use their femininity, their experiences as women and the juxtaposition of women and men to create hilarious comedy.

Walk-outs and online abuse

In the 1980s and ‘90s, female comics were often criticised for only talking about periods and childbirth, thus excluding their male audiences. Even now Esther Manito’s act includes material about a man walking out of one of her gigs at the mere mention of a cervical smear. In the 20th century there was often outright hostility towards some female performers. Men in the audience heckled with offensive and often sexually aggressive comments. Manito reflects in a Guardian article promoting her tour #NotAllMen: “I definitely don’t feel nostalgia for the 90s!”.

Nowadays, verbal abuse of female comics is more likely to take place online via Facebook or Twitter. Celeste Dring and Freya Parker (comedy duo Lazy Susan) satirise this in a sketch where they invite audience members to call their ‘phone line of abuse’ rather than trolling on Twitter. The pair explained in an interview on Woman’s Hour (Radio 4, February 8th 2022) that as a woman in comedy, you have to expect a certain amount of abuse. The kind of in-person abusive behaviour displayed in the ‘90s is less likely, but women still receive more abuse online than men.

Is this because the comedy scene is still predominantly male? If so, why is this still the case?

Straight expectations or are women less funny?

Perhaps it’s because society expects heterosexual relationships with the female as the main carer. She should not be leaving her family (if she has one) to travel the country performing late into the night at pubs and comedy clubs. Esther Manito didn’t let this stop her, as she explains in an in-depth interview with comedy superfan Richard Gill. People questioned whether she should be doing it, but she went ahead anyway.

Or are women, as claimed in a 2019 study by Dr Gil Greengross, simply not as funny as men? This study, which claims that 63% of men were funnier than the average woman, was not based on comedians. Whilst the study could be considered laughable (pun intended), this stereotype could still be damaging to women wanting to enter the comedy world and could deter new female comics from trying to break onto the circuit. Will the comedy world, over the coming years, become more balanced in terms of gender?

Whatever happens, I would encourage you to enjoy the work of our best local female comics!


More from EAB on International Women’s Day

The creep

The creep

March 9, 2022
1917 International Women's Day march in Russia

How International Women’s Day protests sparked the Russian Revolution

March 9, 2022
Break the Bias

Break the Bias

March 8, 2022
MPs from around the world

Do East Anglian politicians represent East Anglian people?

March 8, 2022
People at the Heart of Care government white paper

Half the sky, more than half the cloud

March 7, 2022
Sex worker

Can exploited women and girls be helped today?

March 6, 2022

Tags: International Women's Day
Previous Post

From suffragettes to Million Women Rise

Next Post

Restoring the River Bure

Kathryn Waters

Kathryn Waters

Related Posts

Hedgehog
Anglia

Crisis as falling volunteer numbers threaten Norfolk hedgehogs with potential extinction

byJ.J. Jackson
July 6, 2022
Johnson cabinet meeting before resignations.
Party politics

Johnson’s dominoes begin to fall: who will be the last one standing?

byPeter Thurlow
July 6, 2022
Stephen Toope, Vice Chancellor Cambridge
Anglia

Lack of access to EU funding could lead to “brain drain” – Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

byCameron Holloway
July 5, 2022
Fuel pumps
Activism

Frustration at the cost of fuel sees protests returned to East Anglia

byJ.J. Jackson
July 4, 2022
House of Commons
Politics

GrubbyGates

byMadge McClary
July 3, 2022
Next Post
Upper-River-Bure

Restoring the River Bure

Want to support us?

Can you help East Anglia Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

DONATE

Sign up to our newsletter

If you would like to receive the East Anglia Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

NEWSLETTER

LATEST

Hedgehog

Crisis as falling volunteer numbers threaten Norfolk hedgehogs with potential extinction

July 6, 2022
Johnson cabinet meeting before resignations.

Johnson’s dominoes begin to fall: who will be the last one standing?

July 6, 2022
Stephen Toope, Vice Chancellor Cambridge

Lack of access to EU funding could lead to “brain drain” – Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

July 5, 2022
Fuel pumps

Frustration at the cost of fuel sees protests returned to East Anglia

July 4, 2022

MOST READ

Johnson cabinet meeting before resignations.

Johnson’s dominoes begin to fall: who will be the last one standing?

July 6, 2022
Stephen Toope, Vice Chancellor Cambridge

Lack of access to EU funding could lead to “brain drain” – Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

July 5, 2022
Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk

Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

May 15, 2022
Hedgehog

Crisis as falling volunteer numbers threaten Norfolk hedgehogs with potential extinction

July 6, 2022

Tags

Activism Art Brexit Business Cambridgeshire Climate Community COP26 Culture Democracy Development Economics Economy Education Employment Energy Environment Farming Health Humour Hymns International Women's Day Justice Letters Local elections 2022 Local government National Grid NHS Norfolk Pandemic Partygate Party politics Pecksniff Poetry Politics Poverty Rivers of East Anglia Sewage Sizewell Social care Suffolk Ukraine VAWG Welfare Wildlife
East Anglia Bylines

East Anglia Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in East Anglia and beyond.

Learn more about us

No Result
View All Result
  • About us
    • Contact us
    • Bylines Network
    • Complaints
    • Newsletter
    • Privacy Policy
    • Donate
  • UK
  • Anglia
  • About us
  • UK
  • Anglia

© 2022 East Anglia Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series

© 2022 East Anglia Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In