Final Project Spring 2018

1. ARE FEMALE
COMEDIANS JUDGED ON
A HARSHER SCALE THEN
MEN?
CWID 101
SamanthaWeight

2. WHAT I KNOW
From experience I have noticed that female comedians get judged harder than
men do for some of the vulgar things that they may say on stage.When a man
makes a sex joke it is almost always funny, but can woman make the same joke
with the same reaction from the audience? I’d say that is questionable.

3. WHAT I WANT TO KNOW AND
WHY I CHOSE THIS TOPIC
I chose this topic because I wanted to see if there was any factual evidence of
woman getting treated harsher than men on stage. In this time of day woman
are really taking a stand on equality in all aspects of life and I want to see if there
is any article or video of a female comedian coming out saying that they feel as if
they are judged for things they say when men can say the same thing and have a
different reaction from the audience.

4. STORY OF MY RESEARCH
I began this project not knowing if I would find the information I am looking for. I
sort of had a slow start and got stuck.The first thing that I googled was a very
generic “female comedians who feel judged”. And I found it funny that one of the
first items that google listed was labeled “Why aren’t female comedians funny”.
Though I found nothing helpful on this article, I still found it funny that that was
one of the first articles listed. From that I could tell that female comedians do get
judged on a harsher scale then men by at least a little.

5. CONTINUED:
This question that I googled, “female comedians who feel judged” actually lead me to
a lot more information than I was expecting. A writer for “The Independent” Lisa
Moore, wrote a article titled “Have things improved for comedians?” In this article I
found not a ton, but some information that I found interesting.
“When it comes to comedy, it’s impossible to shy away from the fact that women
have a tougher time of it than men. Female comedians are judged more heavily on
their material, but also on their looks, appearance, mothering skills, sexual
status... the list goes on.”
This statement from Lisa was very helpful when it came to answering my question.
Though it is an opinion, it is evidence that people do believe that woman get
judged on a harsher scale than men in the comedy industry.

6. CONTINUED:
I stumbled upon a website called “Bitch Media” which has different articles from
writers. I found an article written by Barbara Holm titled “Here IsWhat Is Scary
About Being A FemaleStand Up Comic”.
In the article Barbara stated, “The disparity of women to men in comedy is
pretty gross. It seems like the ratio is 1:4 in any group.The debate about how
“hard” it is for women in comedy is a tired one”.This whole article I found to be
very helpful when answering my question and it was a good read.This quote
stood out to me when she said “…is a tired one”.Woman have been judged in
the comedy industry for so long now that she is basically saying that it is old
news and almost sounds as if she is doubtful that anything will ever change.

7. MY SEARCH CONTINUED:
From there I found a website called “TheTelegraph” which had an article written
by Katy Brand about what it is like to be a female comedian. In the article Katy
says, “You will encounter sexist attitudes towards women in comedy… telling
you to your face that women just 'naturally aren't as funny as men because of
evolution', or something.”
Katy goes on to explain and talk about all the “abuse” woman in the comedy
industry go through and sets up her article as what seems to be a “get ready
guide” for women who what to join this industry.

8. “AMY SCHUMER SAYS THESE ARE THE BIGGEST
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOW MALE AND
FEMALE COMICS ARE TREATED”
In an interview for GQ, Amy Schumer who is a famous female actor and
comedian opened up about the challenges female comedians face.
"I've opened for male comics for years and see the difference in the treatment.
It's the expectation of how a woman is going to be, or should be: Be sweet and
likable and apologize for stealing oxygen from the world,"

9. THE SEARCH GOES ON
As my search for answers went on I found an article written on “Vice”. The first
thing that popped out to me was “If you're a broad without a Netflix special to
your name, the chances of you being able to monetize your stand-up is
miniscule.” This quote almost feels like a slap to the face to all women, but also
seems to sum up what it is like to be a female stand up comedian.

10. REFLECTION:
Overall, I think that my question did get answered, but in a much broader way than I was
expecting. I went into this trying to focus in on male vs female criticism on sexual/raunchy
jokes and ended up finding that woman comedians get judged way harder than men do in
all aspects of the industry. Looks, likability, sexual status, ect. Of all my research I did not
find one article making any claims that woman are judged equally in the comedy industry.
I was hoping to find a clip of a female comedian being interview about this topic but was
unsuccessful. After doing my research I realized that female comedians are really a rare
sort.With all the criticism that female comedians are up against the amount of women
comedians that make it to the big stage are very limited.

11. IF I WERE TO DO THIS AGAIN
The research process for my question was difficult at times. If I were to do this
again I would first think harder about my question. I would have put more time
into really breaking it down and thinking about a question that I am interested in
as well as one that I think will have a sufficient amount of information to do
research on. I tried to zone in on my question to sexual and raunchy comedy but
found that I could find very little on that alone. In my research it was hard to find
any information on female criticism that did not take everything in as a whole.
After doing my research on this topic it really seems as though women are just
criticized in every single way in the comedy industry, and that this inequality is
such a well known thing.

12. WORKS CITED:
• The Independent, Have things improved enough for female comedians
• https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/
• Bitch Media, Here is what’s scary about being a female stand-up comic”
• https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/here-is-whats-scary-about-being-a-female-stand-
up-comic
• TheTelegraph, Katy Brand: 9Things you need to know about being a female comedian
• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10998851/Katy-Brand-9-things-you-
need-to-know-about-being-a-female-comedian.html
• Business Insider, John Lynch – Amy Schumer says these are the biggest differences between
how male and female comics are treated
• http://www.businessinsider.com/amy-schumer-biggest-differences-between-how-
male-and-female-comics-are-treated-2015-7

13. WORKS CITED CONTINUED:
• Vice,Why it sucks to be a woman in comedy
• https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yvx49x/why-it-sucks-to-be-a-
woman-in-comedy-1202