Why the schpiel, you may ask about women’s place in comedy? After all, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the Golden Globes thrice! The Daily Show female correspondents are Samantha Bee, Kristen Schaal, and the leading “black female correspondent” Jessica Williams.
Yet, despite the progress, not only has The Daily Show—which was, incidentally, co-created by Hilarious Woman Lizz Winstead—never had a female host, but there currently is not a single female on any late night talk show.
The Daily Show has been simultaneously vigilant and hysterical in its reporting on the neverending war on women.
In fairness, The Daily Show exists in a world which assumes that women are less funny. in a study from 2011 which had a group of men and women individually write captions for New Yorker cartoons. They then had the men and women rate how funny they thought the captions were. The captions created by women were judged to be more or less as funny as those created by men, with men scoring on average only 0.11 higher. In a second related experiment, men attributed the less funny captions to women and the more funny captions to men. And when the male and female captioners were asked to rate themselves, men gave themselves an average score of 2.3, while women scored themselves at 1.5. In other words, the men saw themselves as funnier than the experiment detected.
Research also shows for a woman, a good sense of humor means someone who is funny. For a man, it’s someone who gets how funny he is. Humor is sanctioned, fostered and appreciated more in men than women.
So having a female comedian anchoring a high-profile late-night show will give women the chance to show—and the world to see—just how funny women are. It will also, hopefully, have a ripple effect.
Yet, there’s no doubt in mind that affirmative action is the right thing to do. Affirmative action is still worth it, and will remain that way until the personal prejudices and systemic roadblocks are eroded. Ironically, the very people who oppose affirmative action are proof of why it’s still so needed.
Like affirmative action, hiring a female comedian is not and should not be seen as an act of charity and a burden. Though affirmative action is the right and just thing to do, it’s not some selfless altruistic act on the part of white people. It’s in everyone’s best interest because it brings in qualified people, helps level the playing field (somewhat) and brings out talent.
