It is a moving and astute testimony to how humor can become a form of survival, resistance, and political power. From personal experiences of violence to the founding of the first feminist stand-up workshop in Mexico, this report takes us through a female genealogy of humor, in which laughter is not an escape, but a form of denunciation, of healing, of rewriting the rules. A text that is uncomfortable, touching, and above all shows women a way to tell their story through comedy.
The best way for me to engage with the world goes back to the phrase: “The personal is political.” And although it emerged in the radical women's movements of the 1970s in the United States, it was also a guiding principle for the pioneers of the latest wave of feminism in Mexico. I first encountered it when I was fully immersed in “street” feminism, and it became an important foundation for my feelings and thoughts. I like it because it calls for integration: knowing that what happens to us personally has political roots and social consequences.With this text, I would like to give testimony, because ultimately it is the most authentic way to tell, spread, and share a story. And in the shape of a journey of experience – from the personal to the collective – I can best explain the significance of the connection between comedy and women.
Origin
I am a survivor. For almost twenty years, I lived in an environment marked by extreme and misogynistic violence. My father was an abuser. Beatings, screaming, blood, and constant fear were part of my everyday life. Giving up would have been the obvious thing to do, but there is always a way out. And for me, that way out was resilience.I mention this in one part of my performance: “I am tired of being strong. I would like to finally be beautiful. Let the daughters of the wealthy be resilient. Resilience is unfairly distributed.” A sense of humor was my way out. For me, it is just as much a sense as touch, taste, or balance. It is a way of perceiving the world that permeates the body, culture, and knowledge.
A sense of humor reveals the absurdity of what we call “normality,” a social construct full of contradictions. For example, it is absurd that women in Mexico have not had civil rights for an entire century. It is absurd that when we demand our rights, we are called “fatherless,” as if it is our fault that we were abandoned.
Comedy has always been regarded as an inferior genre because it generally does not deal with the “great passions” but rather with the most banal aspects of human existence: the ridiculous, parody, satire, contrasts, and the absurd. However, this is a gross misjudgment, because comedy as a system and a sense of humor as a mechanism can function as aninstrument of oppression or liberation, depending on how and in what consciousness they are applied. Jokes at the expense of the victims rather than the perpetrators are a reflection of a culture, which is why the power to direct mockery or sarcasm at the oppressors rather than the oppressed is a simple, symbolic, and linguistic fact that, although it seems simple, is a sharp and powerful sword. It represents a global change in the way humor is used.
I don't share the view held in many areas of comedy that stand-up is a way to “make fun of your misfortune.” Based on a well-developed political theory of feminism, I believe that you don't make fun of yourself or inflict violence on yourself. You make fun of the circumstances, of the normativity that is absurd and that we absurdly conform to. The ability to exploit the potential of comedy or not depends heavily on your respective goals.
The History of Feminist Stand-Up in Mexico
I started doing stand-up in one of the first workshops in the country, led by Blanca Salces in 2014. She carefully adapted English texts to the Spanish-speaking context. I also experienced the organization of the protest march on April 24, 2016, a turning point in contemporary Mexican feminism, an event that also changed my life. At that time, I met many survivors like myself who were organizing to talk about their stories: the testimonies under #Miprimeracoso (even before #MeToo), the collective catharsis, and the stories of those affected were fundamental mechanisms of this movement. My way of contributing to this cathartic detonation was through comedy, through the stand-up format I was just getting to know.
Stand-up, in its purest form, consists of expressing an opinion with humor. It involves articulating one's perspective on the world. And I had a clear stance: I had a story, I had an experience, and I was fed up. This is how the Standup Feminista Mx project came about: the first workshop of its kind in Mexico, born out of the activism of this wave, with the intention of using autobiographical humor as a collective catharsis.
Findings
After eight years of workshops, I was able to summarize my experience in five areas of insight:
- The genealogy of funny women
- The Comedienne
- Comedy as a space for political solidarity
- Comedy as a political exit strategy
- Comedy as an intervention of reality
Genealogies
Although it may seem strange, my path to comedy was not primarily influenced by female stand-up comedians. As I said, for me, humor is a way of life, more than a format. I owe my comedic vein to my aunt Leticia, a woman of the nineties and my first feminist role model: she made fun of male uselessness in everyday life. Then there's my sister with her sharp sarcasm. My genealogy also includes Maitena and her graphic feminism in magazines; Sor Juana with her brilliant irony towards simple-minded men; Marjane Satrapi, who told sarcastic stories about her life in times of war. Also Gabriel Vargas and “Los Burrón,” through my grandfather, who made me laugh at the absurdity of social inequality in the city; Chava Flores and his sung chronicles; and Alejandra Bogue in “Desde Gayola,” a pioneer of LGBT cabaret who, since the 2000s, has dared to speak openly about sexual diversity in a Mexico that is still dark in this regard.
In my view, every creative act draws on various sources of inspiration that can be considered ancestors; for this reason, I believe that we women have a personal genealogy that contributes to the construction of a cultural genealogy. It represents vitality, and our personal history consists of the stories of those who have contributed to this vitality: celebrities, family members, friends, conventional and completely unexpected paths.
The Comedienne
I was once asked how I understand the archetype of the comedienne. I see her as a survivor, as a crossroads: as women, we are constantly surviving on different levels, and if comedy and Mexican women have anything in common, it is that both have to find ways that go far beyond the obvious in order to exist.
The other things can be explained really well with what Gloria Anzaldúa said: she talked about borders as symbolic and geographical spaces. Gloria was a lot of things at once: writer, worker, student, native Spanish speaker. When your life is split between so many conflicting worlds, cracks start to show... and those cracks are comedy gold. Inhabiting multiple realities is part of the absurd, and incongruity, viewed positively, can be highly complex comedy.
Comedy as a space for political solidarity
Fun as a space of freedom and political capital: I once heard an entrepreneur say that bars are the ideal place to do business because people are more honest there. And he's right. Laughter, alcohol, the night: for centuries, these were forbidden zones for women, precisely because they enable solidarity, decision-making, and authenticity. In Mexico, it took a long time for women to be allowed to enter a bar, and even longer for them to be allowed to sit there and laugh, especially among themselves. Fun gives power. It is no coincidence that we were denied access to comedy for so long, not only as spectators but also as creators, because laughter is a form of decision-making, of taking power. That is why it is so difficult to accept the comedienne, because she herself determines her story and her narrative.
Comedy as an intervention of reality
As a survivor of misogynistic violence, I can say that humor saved me. Not as an escape route, but as a path of resistance. I don't believe in comedy thathelps you forget your worries. I believe in comedy that enables you to look at the unbearable from a different perspective. Making someone laugh can be a way of showing them a way out. Of saying the unspeakable. Of exposing contradictions. Of letting go of guilt. Well-thought-out comedy doesn't shy away, it confronts.
Challenges of Feminist Comedy
Feminist comedy requires narrative freedom. It means a change of perspective: from the object of ridicule to the subject of the story. Deciding for yourself what you laugh at and what you don't. Of course, this is met with resistance, because the dominant culture would rather we continue to laugh at our non-standard bodies, being single, or how difficult it is to be “understood."
When I first started doing comedy, I often noticed that women felt compelled to make fun of their bodies, whether they were overweight, petite, or pregnant, or that they were divorced or had been single for a long time. I always say in my performance: Okay, I'm fat and I don't have a boyfriend, but there are more interesting things to talk about. It's logical that the bar is set higher for us: people question whether we're funny because our topics aren't. Our topics have always been belittled. To this day, we have to fight to have our analyses heard.
A Chance for Imagination
We are experiencing a crisis of civilization. The end of an era. The 20th century is coming to an end and the 21st century is beginning with wars, AI, post-pandemic depression, and profound changes in how we present ourselves. In this context, comedy is transforming from a simple literary, theatrical, or journalistic format into an educational tool, a catharsis, a form of connection. I am convinced (and this is my experience) that in stand-up, it is not the laughs that are most important, but empathy, because that is what it is all about: understanding and using comedy as a means to build connection from free and complex positions. For us as women on our chosen path to liberation, it can and must be a way to imagine other stories for ourselves. The better the stories we imagine, the better we can make them end.