Hello, gentlemen. I hope you are doing okay. It seems like only yesterday you were at the top of the world, since it was socially acceptable for you to become explorers and travel to the North Pole in a boat or on foot or however you get to the North Pole.
But oh how the mighty have fallen. Yes, you used to hold the vast majority of elected and appointed governmental positions. Now there are at least three television shows that feature female vice presidents and like two or eight women per hundred dudes in every statehouse. You used to take in a greater salary for similar work than your female co-workers. Now you still do but those women also get to wear pants in the office.
Remember the early days of Twitter when nothing ever trended and we didn’t have a specific use for hashtags yet? Those days are gone—replaced by a new era when occasionally a bunch of people share links to watch Wendy Davis filibuster or #yesallwomen pops up for a week and detracts from all the promoted tweets about Arby’s.
It only seems to be getting worse. You are forced to click on and watch a one-minute-and-57-second video about walking around New York for 10 hours—it could have been 10 hours walking anywhere—that highlights some of the ways in which male strangers say “Hi” to female strangers on the street as a means of intimidation and control rather than as an exercise in friendliness. 1:57! That’s way more than the ideal viral video length of 90 seconds.
And what of these Instagram collages comparing little boys’ Full Coverage Policeman Halloween costumes to little girls’ Baby Sweetums Policewoman Apron-For-The-Nipples Halloween costumes? How are you supposed to enjoy the butts featured on the app’s randomized “Explore” tab with one such collage also featured among a sea of other photos?
This crap is all over your Internet, and I know I’m not helping the cause. I insist upon being a woman and talking about life when I do stand-up. I write biweekly A.V. Club columns that never seem to answer the question, “Who is this woman and why is this here?”
I wish I could take away all the pain you must be experiencing, but my feminazi powers are not charged to their full strength. I do have them plugged in and the battery is doing that blinky thing, so I should be able to make it all better, or all worse, very soon. Until then, the best I can do is dispense advice that speaks to my own profession and area of expertise: stand-up comedy.
As a comic, there’s one question I get all the time: Where have all the male stand-up comics gone?
To be honest, I’m not sure. From short spots on male-hosted late night shows to “the one girl in the group of friends” on a sitcom: Women are taking over. But why has stand-up, and comedy in general, become such a female-dominated field?