Nigerian comedian Real Warri Pikin is one of the few major female standup comedians in Nigeria today, and by far the most successful.
Anita Alaire Afoke Asuoha, who was born in Warri, discussed why there aren’t many female stand-up comedians and why it’s such a challenging field for women to enter in an interview with Channels Television.
She claimed that even with her level of recognition in the industry, people still give her a low rating. Women need to put in twice as much labour, according to Warri Pikin.
She stated:
“There are not many women that are doing standup comedy right now. I can actually count them. When I did my show in Abuja last year, I was like “no female comedian?” So I did a post on my page and said, “if you know any female comedian wey good, tag am” and I was shocked. I saw a lot of people tagged and I reached out to them via their DMs. It was only a few of them that had videos of themselves doing standup here and there. I had conversations with them and they will tell you, it’s a male dominated industry. It is hard.
For woman to dey male dominated industry, you need to work twice as hard before they go come talk say na because you fine na why you funny. So I started having conversations with them, talking to them. It’s not easy for this male dominated industry, but you need to know the craft, and you need to be very strategic. I feel like for more female comedians to fill up the space, we need more encouragement.
I remember when I won standup comedian of the year, no be small curse them curse me for comment section, and if other female comedians see those comments, they will go back to their shell. There are a lot of very funny female comedians but there are a lot of factors.
First, you’re a woman. For you to be woman for this part of the world, the world don give you 1-0. And then the society, and then there’s how people see women.
Even till now, I still get it, as big as I am. You just need to ojiri as a woman. When you don understand the dynamics around the industry, you need to chop ojiri tell yourself all die na die. I must do it regardless.“
