Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Stand-Up Comedy
- Cambridge Companions to Theatre and Performance
- The Cambridge Companion to Stand-Up Comedy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Comedians’ Insights What Do You Do to Prepare to Go Onstage?
- Part I Time and Place
- Part II Interpretation and Meaning
- Chapter 5 Stand-Up Comedy and Gender
- Chapter 6 Stand-Up Comedy and Sexuality
- Chapter 7 Laugh No Limit
- Chapter 8 Jewish American Stand-Up Comedy
- Chapter 9 Stand-Up Comedy, Disability, and Social Justice
- Chapter 10 Stand-Up Comedy and Offence
- Chapter 11 Stand-Up and Politics
- Comedians’ Insights Your Writing Process
- Part III Performance Dynamics
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
Chapter 5 - Stand-Up Comedy and Gender
from Part II - Interpretation and Meaning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 August 2025
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Stand-Up Comedy
- Cambridge Companions to Theatre and Performance
- The Cambridge Companion to Stand-Up Comedy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Comedians’ Insights What Do You Do to Prepare to Go Onstage?
- Part I Time and Place
- Part II Interpretation and Meaning
- Chapter 5 Stand-Up Comedy and Gender
- Chapter 6 Stand-Up Comedy and Sexuality
- Chapter 7 Laugh No Limit
- Chapter 8 Jewish American Stand-Up Comedy
- Chapter 9 Stand-Up Comedy, Disability, and Social Justice
- Chapter 10 Stand-Up Comedy and Offence
- Chapter 11 Stand-Up and Politics
- Comedians’ Insights Your Writing Process
- Part III Performance Dynamics
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter considers how gender as a social framework has shaped and informed stand-up comedy, with a particular focus on the UK. Gender identities entail certain cultural expectations, especially when these identities interact with race, class, and sexuality. The chapter explores how gender impacts on all stand-up performers, addressing the unavoidable nature of gender stereotypes as well as historical and contemporary debates about feminism, femininity, and the role of women within the comedy industry. In addition to considering how gender is represented in stand-up material, the chapter examines how wider power structures influence the business of comedy, specifically problems faced by women stand-ups in terms of their access to comedy venues and their treatment by audiences. This chapter tracks the evolution of comedy’s relationship to gender from music hall to working men’s clubs through to the ‘alternative’ comedy boom of the 1980s and stand-up on television.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Stand-Up Comedy , pp. 107 - 123Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Further Reading
Barreca, Regina, They Used to Call Me Snow White … But I Drifted: Women’s Strategic Use of Humor (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992).Google Scholar
Beale, Sam, The Comedy and Legacy of Music Hall Women 1880–1920: Brazen Impudence and Boisterous Vulgarity (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).10.1007/978-3-030-47941-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Joanne R, Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Gray, Frances, Women and Laughter (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mizejewski, Linda and Sturtevant, Victoria (eds), Hysterical: Women in American Comedy (Austin: Texas University Press, 2017).Google Scholar
Tomsett, Ellie, Stand-Up Comedy and Contemporary Feminisms: Sexism, Stereotypes and Structural Inequalities (London: Bloomsbury, 2023).10.5040/9781350302310CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willett, Cynthia and Willett, Julie, Uproarious: How Feminist and Other Subversive Comics Speak the Truth (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2019).Google Scholar
Wood, Katelyn Hale, Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2021).Google Scholar
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