Here at Funny Women, we’re all about women finding their confidence and breaking down taboos, which is why we were delighted to host a comedy show with Boot’s StayDry Discreet called Women Taking the P**s. The show kick-started their new campaign raising awareness of female incontinence and encouraging the women of Britain to start having open and maybe even occasionally funny conversations about it.
Almost half (48%) of the UK’s women are living with urinary incontinence – that’s more than the number of people who suffer from hay fever! Yet 72% of those experiencing urinary incontinence are too embarrassed to talk about it and a shocking 75% are worried about laughing because of it!
So on Tuesday night, we put on the show at the gorgeous Boulevard Theatre in Soho with some top female comedians to laugh with confidence and talk without shame about female urinary incontinence. Shappi Khorsandi, Esther Manito and 2019 Funny Women Awards winner Laura Smyth all got the whole room laughing and Mrs Barbara Nice was even on hand to model a pair of Boot’s StayDry Discreet, hoiking up her leopard print dress to show us all why she felt free to stage dive to Iggy Pop’s The Passenger!
Our host for the night, Shappi Khorsandi said: “It breaks my heart to think of how many women suffer in silence, feeling too embarrassed to talk to anyone. I’m proud to be involved in helping break the taboo associated with female incontinence and getting people talking and laughing about it. After all, it’s nothing to be ashamed of!”
It got us thinking about how effective comedy can be in breaking down taboos that usually surround women’s bodies, from Saturday Night Live’s spoof ad for sanitary towels to the now infamous commercial featuring that glass of blue water! Jenny Eclair and her fellow grumpy old women have been on hand to bring laughter to the subject of the menopause and Netflix series Sex Education uses humour to discuss all manner of awkward subjects. Comedy has even been used to communicate just how dumbfounded women can be about their own bodies! Think of Victoria Wood using her fibroids and resulting hysterectomy for stand up material.
The very nature of comedy is to subvert and what better way to subvert the stereotype of what is acceptable for a pregnant woman to do than film a comedy special with a visible baby bump, a la Ali Wong, Amy Schumer or Natasha Leggero. Think that’s not taboo-breaking? Don’t forget that Joan Rivers, THE Joan Rivers was not allowed to say she was “pregnant” on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967, but that she would soon be: “hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet.”
Women have been using comedy as a weapon against taboos for years because it helps ease open conversation while removing us from the butt of the joke. In fact, it shows we’re in on the joke, because we are the ones experiencing the taboos brought up here. It’s our material and comedy is our weapon.
Thanks to Boots Staydry for letting us be part of this bigger conversation. We all deserve to feel confident enough to laugh, cough, cry or even stage dive if we want and we shouldn’t be ashamed to talk about any aspect of the female experience, even incontinence.
Boots’s new Staydry Discreet underwear is available in-store and at boots.com
Photo credit: Getty
