Humor and Women in the Portuguese Context

Abstract

The relationship established between Humor and Women has been, throughout human history, troubled. Like other aspects of daily life, women have long been denied the ability to be funny. On the other hand, the vehicles through which humor was produced were for a long time linked to traditional media, having recently spilled over into digital media. In this sense, the research question that guided this study arises: how do women who produce humor live this experience according to their gender and, secondarily, how do digital media influence this component? To this end, using methodologically the Critical Thematic Analysis, as defined by Lawless e Chen (2019), interviews carried out with 12 Portuguese women comedians were analyzed. The results showed that the participants consider that there is a historical and social context associated with their gender that has repercussions on how humor produced by women is still seen in Portugal, differentiating, for this reason, from the experiences of their male peers. In this sense, although they show that the fact that they are women influences the humor they produce, they seek to mark their individuality and denote that humor derives from the personal experiences that each lives. Furthermore, social networks were highlighted by the interviewees as a way of gaining notoriety to attract audiences to live shows, also contributing to the existence of more women producing humor.