- Courtesy the artists
- Katie Rich and Holly Laurent
This weekend the Chicago Funny Women’s Festival highlights the work of more than 70 female acts for the third year in a row. While speaking to Holly Laurent and Katie Rich about Joan and Ro, New York City, 1962, their show in the festival, I couldn’t help but bring up my problem with the festival: the Funny Women Festival is great in its mission—bringing together a bunch of funny women to perform—but there’s no Funny Man Festival. It’s well-worn territory, but it seems women in comedy keep being singled out for being women. Luckily, Laurent and Rich are as insightful and intelligent as they are hilarious, and helped me come to terms with the issue.
Rich: I know for a fact that people have been irritated by me or not liked my ideas or preferred to work with someone else. But I have a hard time believing it was because I’m a woman. It was because I wasn’t being a team player. I was doing things that were petty or fear-based. When a male colleague writes a joke I don’t think is funny, my first thought isn’t, “That dude isn’t funny.” My first thought is, “That joke isn’t funny.” An easy way to overcome sexism is to judge the art not the artist.
