Women Comedians Opens Up About Challenges They Face In Industry

"If you're a female comedian, then that was the only distinguishing factor. It was never about what kind of comedy you do or the personality you have in comedy or the genre or style of comedy you do. They did not realise that all of us as female comedians have different styles and genres that we carry and are different comedy voices", said Kaneez Surka, a comedian known for her Netflix show Ladies Up. Shethepeople spoke to comedians to know about their struggle as a comedian. 

Challenges Women Comedians Face

According to Surka, for a woman creating a space in the field of comedy has always been difficult, although things are now slowly taking a turn. Women irrespective of work type face sexism and slightly different treatment in public spaces. Overall stand-up comedians face backlash for the content they perform, but for a women comedian, this goes one step ahead. Just because it is a woman! Firstly, it feels weird to refer female as a woman comedian as a man is never called a male comedian. As soon as division is done based on gender, the struggle becomes larger. The moment a job is gendered, the sexism kicks in, for instance- Women are bad drivers, women aren’t good at maths, women aren’t funny or they cannot make people laugh. But it is not just about attitude, it is about other elements also- the pay, spaces, and more. For women comedians too- be it equal pay or acceptance from fraternity and people it becomes more challenging to earn. 

Kaneez Surka has experience of 17 years in comedy, she started in 2006. One of the earliest challenges was unfair payment for the work. Surkha exclaimed, "I fought for equal pay, which sometimes got ugly and put me in the bracket of hard to work with, someone who complains a lot. Can't say about the other female comedians but I hope I did for them too. It's challenging to be agreeable and likable and at the same time fight for what you believe in and what you deserve."

Equal pay was the primary challenge for female comedians and the infrastructure as it was never women-friendly. Jeeya Sethi, one of the leading comedians in India, said, "The green room used to be challenging to hang out in when it was predominantly male, but now it’s changed coz there’s an equal number of men and women in the green room!"

Surka also faced similar challenges as she found that comedy is a boy's club, no matter where you go in the world. She says, "It was always so difficult to be accepted in this and be cool as one of the boys in this profession." Another challenge she feels is- There aren't many templates for us to follow at the moment. For instance, just being able to do a live tour, the promoters and club owners have a particular template made according to the number of tickets that the male counterparts sell, but there's no template for the number that I as an artist can sell and a lot of female comedians fall into that bracket. Creating my own template is very challenging almost like doing something from scratch. 

Kajol Shrinivasan is also a stand-up comedian who entered the field at the age of 39, which is already dominated by 20-year-olds. Shrinivasan said, "I felt like an outsider, besides restructuring my onstage personality to make it more palatable to the audience was one of the biggest challenges. Mostly because I couldn't understand where I was going wrong. I loved the power and conviction with which George Carlin and Dave Chappelle delivered their lines, I wanted to emulate them. But the audience has a very clear idea in their head of how male and female power is played out. Feminine power is Oprah with all the wisdom and conviction in the world but cloaked in compassion and warmth. This doesn't apply to everyone, and there are various ways people can mold their onstage delivery. Male comedians will go on about how you should be 'savage' - yeah but pick your moments. Savageness is an inherent male energy, and women have many more creative ways to communicate." 

The challenges don't end at an unfair payment, it further touches on how the women can themselves on the stage. Male comedians performing in their track pants seems casual and viby and women doing that seem indecent. There is this unsaid policing that goes on how to behave. For instance- Comedian, Aditi Mittal was asked how to look on stage (I was still introduced onstage as the ‘best tits in the business' even though I showed up in a fucking pantsuit) Supriya Joshi was fat-shamed online. Earlier in 2020, Agrima Joshua's joke on the government created a solid backlash ending up in online threats of rape and death. In the latest, Shashi Dhiman was shamed as ‘nalayak aulad’ as through her standup she expressed her unwillingness in marrying a man of her mother’s choice. The comedians receive rape threats if something goes wrong, they are slut shamed and body-shamed. This is something that comes from ingrained misogyny and sexism. An excellent example is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, although it is set in the 1960s, everything about the show makes sense in contemporary times. However, much has changed, yet a lot needs to be changed. 

The journey of the aforementioned comedian Shrinivasan in the stand-up field has been wonderful as she received support from people like Aditi Mittal, Jeeya Sethi, Karthik Kumar, and Mohit Kumaran. For Sethi and Surka also things have been changing. 

Surka added, "With so many female comedians in the picture, we finally have our own girls' group and that makes me very happy. Sethi said, "I’ve been part of making it an industry and have tried to infuse positivity in every show I’ve organised! I’m the only producer that produces women line-ups with consistency and success and they are the coolest, most fun shows we do!"

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