Why We Can't Stand Up

When women take the stage, we do it differently.

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I attended a comedy workshop for female stand-ups last week, and I was struck by an overwhelming similarity in the feedback: slow down, stand up taller, stop pacing and fidgeting. On the surface, this seems like garden variety critique for emerging performers. But when you look at it through the lens of women in comedy, the subtext carries far more weight.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that my own tendency to rush, be consumed by clock panic, and refrain from “taking up space” is about more than just perfecting performance technique. It goes right back to my three favorite words: apologies, disclaimers, and permission.

Sorry I’m taking so long; you guys are doing me such a big favor for even being here. I’ll try to get off stage as soon as possible. Sorry about me; I’ll try to get through this and make myself small.

And at the root of those apologies is one ugly, glaring truth: A belief that we don’t deserve to be here. To take up time and space. To use our voices, to really sink into our own words.

Not all women in comedy have this problem. Not all women in general do either, but damned if there aren’t a lot of us. I am in awe of my friends who don’t seem to even flinch when they take the stage—I am on my way to becoming one of them, in a fake it til you make it kind of way. Because as I coach other women to unabashedly use their voices—as writers, performers, even when singing—I am driven by a deep belief that we are worthy of being heard, but that belief doesn’t always override my deep-seated wiring to make myself small, quiet, palatable.

I have the same conversation with so many of my young adolescent voice students. When these girls hit a level of technique with their voices, when they are truly beginning to shine, they often hit a wall. I liken it to putting a mute in the bell of a trumpet. “Take the lid of your voice,” I urge them. “I know at your age, it’s hard to proudly let your gift shine, and it makes you feel self-conscious, but try to let yourself go there.”

When they do, I get chills, and these girls know that my chills never lie: They are tangible proof that something beautiful is happening. They are my body’s way of signaling, “There! That’s it. Now we are in the flow.” I help my students experience the thrill of what it feels like to be in your own power, to unleash it without limits or smallness or apology.

It’s astonishing that we can teach and champion others, leading with values that we genuinely, fiercely subscribe to, and yet how rarely we extend that grace to ourselves. That’s why my motto has always been, “Feel the guilt and do it anyway.” Because even if I cringe when being loud and proclaiming that my voice is worthy, even as I hold my head up high and boldly pursue ambitions that light me up, I can’t escape that flicker of Scandinavian Lutheran Midwest Gen X Good Girl programming that tells me to take a seat, put on an apron, know my place.

The difference is this: I recognize that while perhaps that little, disapproving, critical Nice Girl voice may always live inside me to a degree, she does not get to take the wheel. Or the mic. Those are mine, bitch.

Every year, perhaps even every day (despite the self-doubt rollercoaster that is a semi-permanent backdrop of my inner commentary), a larger percentage of me converts to really believing that my voice is worthy, that I am enough, that I deserve to create whatever life I choose. It’s a slow practice, and there’s a lot of faking it before making it, and feeling all sorts of guilt and fear and doing it anyway.

In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Susie always tells Midge “Tits up,” before she goes onstage. That same advice was doled out last week as a handful of bold female comedians learned how to take up space, to fill up a stage and dare to stretch out our words. After all, people came to see us: they paid to see us. They are not doing us the noble favor of merely tolerating our embarrassing presence.

I wrote about this in a satire piece for The Belladonna Comedy: I Apologize For My Memoir. I turned it into satire after it was originally a tongue-in-cheek (but was it really?) excerpt of my memoir, highlighting how uncomfortable it was for me to even have the grandiose idea of writing it.

Dear Reader,

I’m so pleased you’ve chosen to read my memoir, Gaze At My Navel. Before you begin, I have a few things I’d like to clarify. Being a female author writing about her own life, I realize it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that I am overly self-absorbed (some would even bandy about the term narcissist — yikes!), and thus, I feel it’s very important to reassure you that my top priority remains, as in all avenues of my life, making my readers feel as comfortable as possible.

It may appear that, with this book, I am sharing my own perspective, but rest assured, I also see your side of things, and would never dream of offending you with my ideas, and in fact, when you think about it, my point of view is also sort of your point of view! I’m committed to ensuring that every single one of you feels seen and validated, so really, pay no attention to these moderately instructive anecdotes being shouted with apparent confidence; I’m nothing if not a woman of the people!

Fortunately for women memoirists everywhere, I have stumbled upon the useful tool of the prologue disclaimer; if you have writing aspirations of your own, please feel free to borrow this handy device. After all, it presents a tantalizing opportunity to present the world with your story while paradoxically serving the larger purpose of diminishing your work — who could resist?

I’ve thought a lot about framing these issues as strictly feminist ones; I try not to fall into polarizing gender traps, but in this case, the exceptions are in notable contrast to the rule. Personally, my favorite men in comedy are the self-aware ones, the ones who probably lug their own invisible baggage on stage with them, neuroses, vulnerability, and self-doubt waiting in the wings.

But the stereotypes exist for a reason. Comedy is a sexist industry that has often been very harmful for women to break into; in some cases, it has actually been physically and emotionally unsafe. I happened to be lucky enough to enter comedy from the tender womb of a woman taught, all-female stand-up class. Going to mics and performances was like group therapy and stand-up all rolled into one. Even now, I perform for primarily female audiences. And that is by design.

I don’t actually desire to be a stand-up comic who caters to male audiences. If that sounds like a reductive, delusional, self-indulgent paradigm, I’d ask you to consider its opposite. Again, I’ll default to my disclaimer of, “I really love some male comics, and there are some seriously wonderful, kind, real men doing stand-up out there,” but how many women have suffered through long, repetitive performances featuring one young white dude after another complaining about their girlfriends and talking about blow jobs?

Speaking in generalizations, I genuinely wonder how many up-and-coming male comics give much thought to the women in their audiences. Which is why I am pretty much devoted to only giving thought to the women in the audience. And if that limits my career, so be it. Because I am guided more by a desire to give a voice to women on stage and women in the audience than I am a desire to be a successful performer who is everybody’s cup of tea.

Women producing and performing in shows, breaking into and trying to tolerate sexist industries is nothing new. It’s a variation on a very, very old theme. One that I am tired of. A refrain where generation after generation, women make ourselves good and small, sometimes for the comfort of others, and sometimes for our own physical safety.

We have done this for so long and in so many settings that we don’t even realize we are doing it. We carry these innate tendencies everywhere we go: in dark alleys and parking garages, in our relationships, in our workplaces, and on stage, too.

And it makes me angry.

I have been producing live storytelling shows for the past 9 years, and while we sometimes have a man in our cast and we love to have men in the audience, these shows are primarily by women and for women. This is so important to me: it is long past time for women to take the stage feeling powerful and safe enough to speak their truth, and for women to spend their time and money sitting in a theater where they hear stories and messages that were made for them.

When Zoe Rogers and I put on Reclamation: The Fempire Strikes Back, a storytelling + stand-up comedy show featuring women unapologetically talking about the things we aren’t supposed to say out loud (in public! on stage!), we were insistent that it be a safe space for audience members and performers. (Save the date for December 5th—we are doing another Reclamation show at the Muse in Lafayette!) Women are tired of sitting in auditoriums listening to sexist garbage, and women are also tired of being turned down for opportunities because of misogyny in the industry.

I interviewed my co-producer Zoe Rogers last spring about the inclusive comedy festival she produces:

It was difficult to hear about some of the sexism and harassment and cruelty she’s encountered in the comedy world, both in LA and locally. When we interviewed her for the podcast last year, she told us about a time when she suggested to a producer that he put her and another female comic she admired on a show together (two women on a show—what!!) and he replied, “It’s not ladies’ night.”

She told us, “I was like staring at him, and I had this moment where you have to choose sometimes between saying the right thing and being able to continue to work. I wanna be like, are you the same guy that put eight straight white dudes in the same hoodie on stage for 90 minutes, who talked about how bitches are crazy and they get high in their mom's basement? Cuz that was redundant.”

I am going to keep creating programs where women’s voice are amplified, and where women in the audience feel seen, safe, and relevant. On that note, Zoe and I are bringing an all-female stand-up comedy show to the Dairy Center in Boulder on Friday, October 25th. One of the most important aspects of being part of the resistance is supporting women-produced entertainment; we aspire to bring high quality entertainment that resonates with our audiences so they don’t have to squirm through another performance that objectifies or insults women. Tickets just went on sale—grab yours here, and we’ll see you in the coven. 😉

XOXO,
Steph