Earlier this week we ran a Feminist Swearing Night for the Finnish Institute in Brighton. You may think that we already encourage women to use expletives on stage at Funny Women but you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen the Finns in action!
What surprises me is how liberal and ribald feminine language really is and, given permission to let loose, it is amazing to see women from all walks of life taking part with such passion.
This ties in neatly with the continual redefinition and appropriation of language both culturally and creatively and I have seen a lot of changes since I set up Funny Women. In particular, the ‘C-word’ which has migrated from being a marginal, little-used expletive to almost mainstream language!
I have to be honest here and say that ‘c**t’ is still not a word that I feel particularly comfortable saying (or writing) out loud, but I understand its power and why it defines a certain freedom of feminine speech. It’s ironic that a word meaning female genitalia is often used as a derogatory term to describe bad men. Yet language changes continually and words bend and meld to new meanings and applications.
I particularly like the fact that the actual letter ‘C’ is an incomplete circle and can be pronounced soft or hard at the start or in the middle of a word. Many of the keywords I use in my workshops begin with ‘C’ as does ‘Comedy’ so I have redefined the C-word analogy and created a little comedy manifesto for you using some of my favourite C-words.
Here’s my top 10 in no particular order:
Circular
Women’s lives are ‘circular’ in nature. We like to talk, knit and work together in circles. Life isn’t naturally linear as we circulate around our family, friends and colleagues so I like to work in a creative circle to exchange ideas and harness our creativity. Let’s use our skills and talents to make the comedy circuit properly circular and inclusive.
Community
Women are the heart of any community – creating and nurturing, giving and sustaining. Humour plays an essential role in our lives and it is our understanding of the extremes, from comedy to tragedy, that informs today’s brilliant female performers, writers, filmmakers and producers.
Congregate
We’re not talking places of worship here – it’s all about our social groups, in person and virtually. We like to congregate, discuss, exchange and advise each other. Comedy happens when we take it beyond the community and in front of a congregation. Create your own or get involved with events like our very own Time of the Month.
Communicate
I think we’re pretty good at this and social platforms give us a safe place to promote and express ourselves, experiment with material and exchange opportunities – look how many women have built their profiles and made names for themselves with a mobile phone and an Instagram account!
Collaborate
Creativity goes hand in hand with collaboration. When we are open and listening that’s when the magic happens. Comedy relies on collaboration – remember that your audience is your greatest collaborator. In business, get colleagues and customers on your team by using humour. Comedy sells.
Create
As women we have to be creative in all aspects of our lives and when we apply our feminine circular insightful analysis and inquisitiveness to life’s challenges the results can be truly amazing, and very funny. Don’t hold back – explore a funny idea and take it to the limit.
Comfort
Feeling comfortable in our skin should be a given but for many, it’s still a luxury. In Western society, we can campaign and fight for our rights in relative safety with #MeToo, #TimesUp and #everydaysexism to support and sustain us. The comedy circuit has not been immune and the threat to our comfort is as real as it is in other industries so call out bad behaviour.
Courage
Most of the women I know are courageous even if they don’t think they are. Comedy and speaking in public are the ‘shop window’ end of it because for every woman who says it, there’s millions behind her thinking it. Courage is the shot of adrenaline that helps us ‘stand up to stand out’ and achieve our goals.
Clever
Many women I know are clever – using their intuition and instincts to communicate and get stuff done. Acknowledge your knowledge and share it. ‘Clever’ and ‘funny’ are natural bedfellows too so go with your instinct and don’t let your intellect get in the way of generating a laugh.
Confidence
You’ve got it. We’ve got it. Put all the other C-words together and that gives us Confidence with a big f*** off capital ‘C’. Own it.
The result is… Comedy!
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Please use this as a guide to kickstart your comedy or public speaking career and feel free to share your own comedy C-words with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Linked In. My next Stand Up to Stand Up comedy workshop will take place early in 2019. Watch this space for details…
