While women have been attempting to try their hands at comedy for as long as comedy has existed, unfortunately most ancient societies had a pretty dim view of female humor. The ancient Greeks, for all their literary and playwriting talent, would still use male actors for female roles.

Indeed, the common belief among ancient Greek men (which in some forms persists to this day) was that a woman’s sense of humor was based on her enjoyment of male jokes. However, they seemed to also be perfectly ok limiting a woman’s access to the stage to actually test this hypothesis, which might be pretty telling.

Part of the issue was that much of the paying power and thereby demand was skewed against female comedy. However, as women entered the workforce, they gained both the ability to “work” in comedy and to pay to consume it, like both arms of a set of bellows fanning a fire. By the 1920s, general demand for mass media, including comedy, finally gave some women the chance to shine.

However, let’s face it, it’s not like the media we consume is now a perfect and fair representation. In Hollywood, for example, there are roughly 2.24 male characters for every female character in all types of films, not just comedy. This same study also found that roughly only 30% of women's roles even involve speaking.

However, unlike the old, focus-group-worshiping executives deciding on who gets to star where, social media is a tad more democratic. Indeed, you don’t need to somehow try open mic after open mic, if you want a shot at comedy, you can simply make a post here and there and see what gains traction.

This is perhaps why, as of 2023, online comedy is popular among female comedians, with 92% of them using Instagram and 89% using Twitter. The internet is full of comedy gold, so perhaps take note of the posters who tickle your fancy and give them a follow.

Despite the clear and present evidence that women are, very regularly, funny, there still are sizable gender imbalances in comedy as well. UK comedy panel shows are, regularly, two thirds male, for example, limiting potential exposure for female comedians. The silver lining is that this is still a vast improvement from the 1980s, where women were just 3% of guests.

Similarly, in the US, most comedy club lineups will still be male-dominated. For example, in 2014, New York comedy club Carolines featured only 20% female performers. These numbers have improved since then, but 2014 was only a decade ago, women have been in the arts, one way or another, for centuries.

Often, the female comedians of the past, like the legendary Phyllis Diller, had to resort to self-deprecation to draw a laugh. She would mock her own physical appearance and, at times, call herself ugly. Self-deprecation isn’t anything new in comedy, but it’s telling that female comedians were forced into this mold until quite recently.

Some have even gone as far as to argue that stand-up comedy is a male-dominated medium. Braggadocious stories, tales of exploits and aggressive language and punchlines all are still quite popular. Women are slowly changing this mode, but viewers still see the male elements of comedy as core components of it, not just things that have become normalized.

This is why, despite some recent issues, X remains a heaven for comedy, intentional or not. The character limits foster creativity, you can get immediate feedback and folks can riff on each other's work in the replies. Plus it never hurts to see someone express in words something you have always felt deep down.