Magazine

Women on top but still not equal

We doubt that there was anyone stood at the door stopping more than one or two women enter each heat of the BBC Radio 2 New Comedy Award, so what exactly is it which stops more girls from entering competitions such as these?

If the Funny Women Awards are anything to go by then it doesn't look as if women are put off from performing stand-up comedy in and of itself, since we had eight or more ladies entering each of our 15 heats this year in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, Dublin and Brighton. But perhaps they are put off from entering mixed gender competitions?

Girls are generally told more often than boys that they're not funny. This is a part of the society-wide problem where if a girl is unfunny, she is representative of her entire gender, but if a girl is funny, she's a phenomenon. (But probably not that funny.) Why else would people so frequently ask the question 'Are women funny?' Some women are funny, some women aren't. Debate over.

Despite the paucity of female entrants to the BBC Radio 2 New Comedy Award, the female comedians who did enter are doing very well. Lucy Beaumont won her Brighton heat with anecdotes about her Hull background, Steph Peart used her Mother's religion as material, winning the Liverpool heat, Haley Ellis and her dinosaur impression came runner-up in Manchester, and Harriet Kemsley, who saves lives, ran-up in the London heat, and has now been chosen for the wildcard vote. You can go to their website HERE and vote for her to get through to the semi-finals.

12 new comics will compete in the semi-finals (keep checking the BBC Radio 2 website for more details and dates), and with three assured lady entrants, that's still only a quarter of the entries. With a roughly even gender split between men and women in the general population, isn't it time we saw that split in competitions like these?

As well as producing our Funny Women Awards to support female comedians, we also run comedy workshops, at introductory and advanced levels, where women are given the tools to get over public-speaking butterflies and the confidence to get up and be funny in front of strangers. If you want to see more funny women taking the stage and walking away with national comedy awards, then come along to one of these workshops, and maybe we'll see you on stage next year, exhibiting your fresh, new comedic talent.

To find out more about the BBC Radio 2 New Comedy Award go HERE.