ABSTRACT
One of the cultural legacies of the 1980s is the resurgence of standup comedy as a popular genre, evidenced by the appearance of comedy clubs in virtually every American city, the prevalence of stand-up comedy programs on cable and broadcast television, and the number of stand-up comics who have made the transition to film acting or roles in television situation comedies. An important aspect of the phenomenon is the increased access women gained to the stand-up comedy stage.1 Phyllis Diller recalls that when she entered the field in 1955 there were no other women comics (quoted in Collier and Beckett 1980:3). Estimates from the late 1980s suggest that about 10 percent of professional American stand-up comics are female, as are 25 percent of aspiring comics (see M.A.Dolan 1989; Unterbrink 1987:197). In the wake of the comedy boom of the 1980s, there are a large number of well-known women comics, including several superstars of the genre, some of whom have used stand-up comedy as launching points for careers as film actors or television writers and producers.
