Funny Women

I was reminded this week that Christopher Hitchens once wrote an essay called “Why Women Aren’t Funny”. I won’t link to it but you can find it by Googling. He quotes Kipling to aid in his premise, so… yeah. I don’t think the essay is really as bad as the title sounds but even the “generous” nods to funny females he allows for are still tinged by sexism. Basically, he thinks that men HAD to be funny since we were the ones courting women. Our job was to be funny and their job was to laugh. Hence, there was never a reason for women to evolve being funny. This couldn’t be further from my truth. A funny woman is one of the sexiest things going.

So, with that in mind, I would like to present a few funny women. You could quibble with who I’ve included and that’s what the comment sections are for. It isn’t meant to be all-inclusive by any means and I tried to steer clear of obvious choices (Ellen, Carol Burnett, Sarah Silverman, etc.) and really just wanted to focus on stand up. I had considered writing a little blurb with my thoughts about each person and an explanation for why I like them but, honestly, do we really need another white guy man-splaining female comedians? Nope. The ladies can speak for themselves.

Cristela Alonzo

Michelle Wolf

Gina Yashere

Sarah Cooper

Taylor Tomlinson

Dulcé Sloan

Annie Lederman

Marina Franklin

Esther Povitsky

Tien Tran

Jessi Klein

Be sure to share your favorite funny females in the comments (or on Facebook).