My bartending experience is quite different - and much more limited (let me get that out of the way) - when it comes to working with women than it was working as an attorney. Currently, there are two women bartenders and four male bartenders where I work. I would much rather work with the guys than the girls where I'm currently at. I like both girls immensely. They're wonderful people, but as workers - not so much. I've covered over 20 shifts for the both of them combined, yet neither has covered one shift for me. None of the people I work with is particularly gossipy - male or female, which is great. When you do work with them, they're slower, do less, and rely on their looks for tips - which I would happily do if I didn't look like a warmed over bag of ass. So I'm not profaning their abilities, I think they both know what they're doing behind a bar. But they'll ditch shifts, not do prep, lollygag, and otherwise be a pain in the ass to work with, to the point that when I have a shift following one of them, I go in a half hour early (unpaid) to get stuff ready for my shift. Again, my experience is very limited in this area (though I've heard other bartenders elsewhere complain of similar things - but I don't believe that is entirely accurate or necessarily representative of the whole. Just pointing out my experience in this regard is very different from my other work experience with women. EDIT: Funnily enough, I happened to send a text to both girls about covering a short shift tonight. Though I covered shifts for both of them two weeks ago, neither can do it. I'm not surprised. Again, disclaimer, limited experience, etc. etc.
I would have thought the opposite about calling in sick. Statistics don't fail me now, but I thought the real reason women generally received less pay was they were more likely to call out sick/pregnant/have to stay at home with sick kids, etc. As far as which sex calls out hungover, I think it could go either way. I will point out that as a dude, I can't exactly call out with "men's issues", and back in the day, in one of my high school retail jobs, there was a cashier who would call out once a month when she was working with the oldest, male manager and cite "women problems". She got away with it the entire time I worked with her, because what middle-aged retail manager was going to call her out on it?
I'm also a bartender. Where I work there are 6 female staff, and one other male. I definitely prefer working with the girls, and I generally find them much more reliable and helpful when it comes to covering shifts (although, the guy in question in this situation is rather lazy anyway). The girls are all more likely to be up for drinks after work, or just whenever we are free as well. Some are single, some aren't, but it doesn't really matter, they're all a lot of fun, and as I said, fine to work with. I wouldn't have any complaints. On the other hand, when it comes to my bosses/managers, I find that I get on a lot better with the males. With the girls who are just casual/part-time staff like myself, I have no obligation to be involved in whatever gossip/girl talk they have amongst themselves. But with one female boss in particular, I find I have to play along in order to please her and not put her offside. She likes to make comments on all sorts of things, and often leaves conversation open in a way that I'm basically forced to agree with her or offer thoughts on whatever nonsense she thinks is important at the time. With my male bosses, we can just talk sport or whatever, and I'm not subjected to any of that sort of thing.
Two points/questions about the bold type. 1. Isn't shooting aptitude solely a function of practice and discipline? Is there any reason why a man should be better than a woman, e.g. strength or body size? If there's no reason as to why, it seems like a perfect example of lowering standards just to fill quotas. But, it's an easy argument to make that quotas have value, whether they are gender based or race based. 2. Isn't staying out of legal and financial trouble solely a function of discipline? Why do males who are otherwise better soldiers fail at this moreso than women? In 99% of military jobs, isn't the ability to manage your own affairs more important than marksmanship? My halfhearted conclusion is that male soldiers (and workers) concentrate on the areas that they value, and females do the same. Without both contributions, the workplace suffers. I hire slightly more women than men as staff or temp attorneys, and based on a sample of dozens, don't see much difference in work performance. On the top end, some women have been more detail oriented, and on the bottom end, they tend to be more disruptive when they don't understand how to do something rather than discreetly figuring out how to do it. Men are the same on average, but the high isn't as high and the low isn't as low. I have no preference as to the gender of my next hire(s).
Yes, practice plays a big part of it, but it isn't like we can go out to the range and check out a gun and just practice. You only get to shoot if you have to be qualified to shoot either because your job requires it (the vast majority don't in the AF) or because you're being sent to a potentially hostile area. Most people in the AF will probably shoot 3 or 4 times in their career so it isn't like there is some huge disparity in the practice guys are getting and the practice women are getting. [/quote] The thing about the military is that whether you have the woman who can't qualify on the range or pass her PT test or the guy who gets stripped of his security clearance because he's up to his eyes in debt, both are a liability when deployed so neither of them are allowed to go which hurts the overall effectiveness of the force.
I'm sure that you can do statistical analysis and all that and draw some sort of conclusion, but from what I've seen, a decent woman will shoot just as well as a man. It really is just about how you apply the fundamentals. In every female platoon, there's some chick from Idaho who shoots 243/250 and makes everyone go "Holy shit." On the other hand, there's usually 20-25 women out of every boot camp platoon who UNQ miserably. They just can't shoot. They don't know how to hold the gun, they don't know how to take recoil, they don't know how to aim. You know those younger girls who can't throw because they haven't figured out how to put their body's motion into it? It's the same with these women... except they can't learn, for some ungodly reason. Every time I see someone shoot a completely hilarious round, it's a woman. There was a girl who shot 70/250. You have to TRY to shoot that poorly. As it turned out, she was shutting her eyes and jerking away every time she shot because she was scared of the recoil of a .223 round. Pathetic. It's the same reason why men in the civilian world get in more trouble than women; males aged 18-25 are fucking stupid and are more likely to do dumb shit. As for marksmanship being more important, it depends on the job. If I'm an infantryman, I'd much rather have a chubby twice-convicted DUI alcoholic who can pull my ass out of harm's way than a perfectly behaved female. The fatass can lug a mortar plate a hell of a lot farther. My own job? I'd take the woman.
1. Actually, women are physically BETTER suited to be good shooters, especially standing. Their wide hips and narrower shoulders give a much better platform to shoot from, and a lot of women who legitimately want to become good shooters don't bring all of the bravado that men do to training. I trained (as a favor) 10 soldiers from a National Guard MP unit the last time I was in Iraq. The females had never shot a pistol before, whereas most of the men were cops and had lots of trigger time (according to them). The guys were very hard to train, and WAY overestimated their performance. I didn't fire a round or do a demonstration until the end of the first day, when I'd had enough of the misplaced arrogance their head Sergeant had. Once I did, they stopped running their traps quite a bit. At the end of the second day, when EVERY SINGLE ONE of the females were consistently out-shooting the men, they shut up a bit more. When we had a competition, and I gave out certificates to the three girls who won, and "participation" certificates to the guys, they were put in their place. 2. Staying out of financial trouble, for soldiers, is mostly a matter of educated. A lot of guys that come from low-income families simply do not know how to handle money. They don't realize that credit cards aren't free money. They don't realize that pay-day loans are usury. They buy stuff no-interest/no-payments for X period of time and forget to pay. Staying out of legal trouble typically has to do with two things: DUI and fighting. The girls typically don't get DUI's because, surprise surprise, when they are out they are with guys who are driving. And the fighting thing is pretty self-explanatory. The difference between men and women, in my experience, has been a willingness to actually do their jobs. I've had to essentially bribe women to get them to do things that they are paid to do (see above shooting class story), whereas the guys I've dealt with have been motivated (but not always competent). I'll pick motivated over competent any day in the military.
It's pretty easy to fix incompetence if the guy is motivated. You say what he's doing wrong and how to fix it, and the person fixes it because he wants to do well. All you have to do from there is take a look every hour or so to make sure that other issues aren't popping up. If the guy is competent but apathetic, he can (might) get the job done, but don't expect him to do anything more than what you asked. Hell, don't expect him to actually do the job; you're going to have to supervise him every step of the way. Also, expect attitude that you're actually expecting him to work. Working with women, I've gotten looks that have just pissed me off. Anyone who's worked with apathetic people knows what I'm talking about - the "Are you REALLY telling me to do this" look. Yes, motherfucker, I'm telling you to do it. A man is more likely to suck it up and, well, be a man about it. A woman is far more likely to say "But why," whine, give me attitude, and try to get out of it. I had a woman ask me why I had her sweeping a walkway when there were other guys who could be doing it. I said, "You're right. You shouldn't be doing that." I had another guy take over, and had her moving cinderblocks instead. The look on her face was worth the ass-chewing I got the next day from her gunny.
I've heard horror stories about women in the military, but I think (hope?) that this is not typical across the board with all professions. I think a lot of the behavior stems from the fact that many military men have the idea that they are the protectors....of country, of their family, etc. So, I think women get treated in a way that breeds these bad behaviors. It is obvious that a woman will never be as strong as a man. Women aren't built that way. So a lot of men have the attitude that the women are there but incapable. The women A) aren't challenged, and B) make excuses that are supported by that attitude and that they are able to get away with time and time again. I know it is a lot more complicated than just that, but that might be a start.
The problems with women in the military can be expected because...well, it's a relatively new phenomenon. There have been women soldiers before, sure, but they haven't been guaranteed equal treatment alongside male soldiers. I think the military's will iron out the kinks with females in the ranks soon, especially since it's becoming costly in terms of care, lawsuits and effectiveness of the force. I'm curious if it's just the military: my female cop friends are in better shape than most of their male counterparts and it doesn't sound like they get preferential treatment.
I just read this a couple minutes ago, and think its spot on. Not because I agree with her, and she's a woman and it supports my opinion of "Men are funnier than Women argument", but rather because she actually took a deeper look at the differences of comedic style of stand-ups as it relates to the sexes. Basically, women comedians talk about shit that is exclusive to their gender, while male comedians branch out further. So no wonder dudes don't find women's humor funny, because we can't relate to it. Spoiler "A WOMAN EXPLAINS WHY WOMEN AREN’T FUNNY Posted by Kyria Abrahams • 06.20.12 09:00 am Last Saturday, in an interview with Larry Getlen in the New York Post, Adam Carolla was quoted as saying what every man I know secretly thinks anyway: men are, as a whole, funnier than women. “They make you hire a certain number of chicks, and they’re always the least funny on the writing staff. The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks,” he said, in preparation for a month of masturbating alone in his office. Immediately, outraged blog posts started popping up, and Adam was decried as a misogynist and an asshole and a bad father for insinuating that his daughter should become a sitcom writer because it’s easy. Despite this, that guy from The Man Show made it pretty clear that’s how he personally feels and he feels that way because he’s a comedian and it’s his business to feel that way. Adam also said he doesn’t particularly care what anybody thinks about it. So here’s what people think about it: 1. Adam is mean and a jerk! 2. What if a woman said men weren’t funny? 3. He is wrong for not finding every woman alive absolutely hilarious! 4. Grrrr! Vaginas! Change your mind, damnit! Now, I don’t know Adam Carolla, nor do I have any opinion on him. He could be a replicant, he could eat black babies. He could, in fact, actually hate women and rape one or two every day at lunch. This is information I don’t have. Ultimately, I don’t really think it’s relevant. The point is, every time a man says women aren’t funny, women respond in the same way. They say: You’re wrong. The problem is, by simply responding with “You’re an asshole and a woman hater,” you ignore the idea that individual human beings are entitled to their own sense of humor. For example, I don’t find a lot of humor in Def Comedy Jam, but that doesn’t mean I think the South should have won the Civil War. It means talking about black women’s weaves is just is not funny to me. It’s not my life experience. I don’t care if you pull a Clockwork Orange on my eyeballs and play Steve Harvey on an infinite loop while feeding me a heroic dose of mushrooms and tickling my feet—I’m not going to crack a smile at a man in purple double-breasted suit. I simply don’t care that white people dance like THIS. But no one would say the reason I’m bored by most Def Jam-style comics is because I’m a racist. I’m not expected to like it. So why does it have to be misogynistic to think most women aren’t funny? All this is to say: women actually are funny. Women are side-splittingly hilarious, in fact. Mostly to other women. To men, however, they’re usually kinda "meh." I’m a woman, but all of my favorite comedians are men. Does that mean I hate women, too? Do I hate myself? What if I take a hammer to my vagina and scream, “I NEVER WANTED YOU!” while pounding my clit into Veal Marsala and listening to Kathy Griffin? Choices! Poor, dead, Christopher Hitchens! His legacy, unfortunately, seems to be a boorish, vague observation in Vanity Fair that women aren’t funny because, evolutionarily, they didn’t need to be. Sure, the man had some pretty solid arguments against religion and God and stuff, but let’s remember him for who his favorite female comedian was, shall we? Later, we’ll get a sneak peak at a posthumous recipe book for the Hitch’s favorite home-cooked meals: Linguini is Not Great: How Ragu Poisons Everything. That women don’t need to be funny is an interesting argument, I guess, but there’s simply no way to prove it. Women don’t need to be funny? OK. I mean. Maybe? You either agree or disagree; and if you do agree it’s on the basis that it “sounds about right.” The baby ain’t swimming because the baby ain’t got no legs. How about this. How about instead of saying that women aren’t funny (which is histrionic, overreaching, and based in opinion) let’s say this instead: Most men don’t find most women funny. And this, in turn, really pisses off most women. Because they find themselves fucking hilarious. Instead of getting all red-faced and angry about men not thinking I’m funny (mercy me, whatever shall I do?), I decided that I wanted to delve deeper into the question itself. That is: Why don’t men think women are funny? After some thought, I came up with this hypothesis: I bet it has something to do with their jokes. With the help of a magical wizard named YouTube the White, I watched five 5-7 minute (industry standard) sets from five men and five women who are well-respected in the comedy scene as of late. These are not open-mikers, they are rising stars. I purposely did not include great comics such as David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Louis CK, Sarah Silverman, Maria Bamford, or anyone who has had measurable long-term success as a comedian. Instead, I chose the type of comics who show up in a HuffPo “Comics we’d love to get pedicures with!” photo spread. Where possible, I used a set that had aired on late-night television. I wrote down every premise they covered and then I compared notes. The subjects the women spoke about were essentially all the same. They were, in short, all about themselves. Their life, their hair, their roommates, their feelings. In other words, all the female comedy was turned inward. Out of five 7-minute sets, there were only three jokes that spoke about outside events and only one joke about politics. It took 28 minutes before I laughed aloud. The men, on the other hand, rarely spoke about themselves. Jokes about their appearance were used as soft openers in order to lead the audience into the set. This is not to say that male comedians are not capable of being horrible, self-involved, rambling bores. Dear God, are they ever! But out of my personal test group, they were not. They spoke liberally about history, religion, and politics. They spoke in pithy, crafted observations. Never once did they mention they felt fat. Below is the list of topics I faithfully wrote down as each new premise presented itself (where topics repeated between comedians, I placed a numeric tally after the premise). In alphabetical order: Female Comics Apartment is annoying Bathroom attendants Being a female comedian (x2) Cosmo Magazine Dating is awkward (x2) Diamonds Did poorly in school Doesn’t want kids because she’s “selfish” Gay marriage Gynecologists/pap smears Hangovers Hates New York Her body (x2) Her mom (x2) Her vagina How guys hit on her It’s hard being a woman, putting on makeup, and wearing heels and stuff Jizz Just got engaged Just went through a breakup Masturbation Roommate is annoying Sex and condoms She’s flat-chested She’s fat She’s too pretty to do standup (x2) What she’s wearing What/who she looks like (x2) Yoga Male comics: Alaska Being thanked on an elevator Clichés people use Free AIDS clinics God won’t help you bowl/God doesn’t exist Having sex with animals His name Holding the phone between your ear and shoulder How to treat AIDS If the Jews killed Jesus Jail shows Mayan 2012 prediction People asking him where he’s from Pickle juice The “ethnic needs” section of the supermarket The age of sliced bread The Cyclone at Coney Island The Roman Empire The storylines behind rollercoasters Vegan soul food What/who he looks like (x2) White chocolate is racist The first difference I noticed was how much easier it would be to guess the male comedians by looking at their premises. If you saw "Coney Island rollercoaster" and you know anything about comedy, you immediately know the comic I’m talking about. But, say, did you hear the one about the…vagina? You know the one about the vagina? Am I right, ladies? Oh yes, that one vagina joke. I’ve heard that one! It’s not that women aren’t funny. That’s a stupid-ass thing to think, since obviously there are funny women. However, I think female comedians don’t really want to relate to a greater audience. And ultimately, I think their core audience is just fine with this. If bachelorette parties are entertained and gay men are drinking it up, the comediennes are doing their job. Just like Def Jam and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour do what they’re paid to do. A lot of comedy is pandering to a core audience. Interestingly, when men point out the women they DO find funny, they inevitably point to comedians such as Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman. That is, it’s the women who break this self-involved stereotype—comics who don’t constantly talk about themselves, and if they do, there’s a punchline. Comics who write jokes instead of telling stories. Comics who are harsh and focused and practiced. Women at the top of their craft. Let me talk to the ladies in the crowd for just a minute here. Ladies? If you want men to find you funny, I’m afraid you’re going to need to broaden your topics of conversation. You’re going to need to talk about books and things outside your studio apartment in Brooklyn. However, if you don’t want men to find you funny, then just keep doing what you’re doing. Talk about yourself all day and all night! Talk about dating and read from your fourth-grade diary until the crowd carries you off on its shoulders. However, don’t squirt your period all over the couch when Adam Carolla says he doesn’t think most women are funny and doesn’t want to hire them for his show. Because you have the ability to change that. Before you write a joke, why don’t you ask yourself: Do I actually have anything new to say? Am I adding value to people’s insights and beliefs? Or do I just tell stories and expect everyone in the audience to find me as adorable as my family and friends do? How about this: Instead of getting angry at men for saying you’re not funny, why don’t you go on stage before them and kill so fucking hard that they can’t follow you? Why don’t you write killer material and shove it in their face until they can’t deny how great you are? Why don’t you do what every other comic does and use your anger and determination as fuel to destroy the crowd? There’s a lot of competition and resentment in comedy. Comedians are fucking assholes. If that upsets or intimidates you—male or female—then I’d say you’re not cut out for it. However, if it doesn’t upset you and inspires you, then get on stage and blow the room away and show Adam Carolla he was dead wrong. And if you can’t do that, then you’re not really funny, are you? —KYRIA ABRAHAMS"
I work in medical/scientific research, a field dominated at lower levels by females but this bias skews the other way the closer you get to the top. This is partly due to the fact that like many industries it was traditionally a boys club of sorts, and hence those that have been in the game long enough to now be at the top are probably men. However, the other major factors contributing to this are family related, principally that women generally need to take time out of their career should they wish to have children and once they do have kids they may be less willing to spend the vast majority of their lives in the lab, which is 6necessary to get to the top. Nevertheless, of the many lab heads I know there are quite a few women in these positions and I'd prefer to work under one as I find them generally more open minded and easier to get along with. As for coworkers I prefer a mix as I think it takes many minds of different majeups and experiences to effectively and sensibly solve problems. Which is a nice segue to my next and broader point: why do we insist that everyone is equal and the same? People are individuals in many respects and everyone brings something different to the table. Now that's not to say that everyone is not deserving of the same basic rights and opportunities, far from it. Great teams are made up of people with different skills that together achieve more than the sum of their individual parts. Men and women are physiologically different with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some roles require traits that are more common in one sex, and therefore that sex should be overrepresented in that job. Of course, this is a generalisation and as with any generalisation exceptions exist. I believe in a meritocracy where as long as someone can perform to the level required they should be given the opportunity to fulfil that role. I think we do ourselves a disservice when we insist that everyone is equally good at task x rather than assess people as individuals based on their own specific talents.
When you listen to the majority of female comics at an open mic/up and comers night - really anyone short of the a-list - watch girls in the audience. The majority of them don't laugh any more than guys. They just pull the party line and support women being equal. The question about why women aren't funny I think ultimately comes back to why most comedians are ugly. The vast majority of people who really invest in being funny aren't doing it for the love of laughter. They're doing it because they don't have the physical charisma to form social bonds based on aesthetics. Genuinely funny people almost universally got into being funny because they were weird/different/not fitting in and they found out that jokes lubricate social circumstances. Jokes are fundamentally how ugly people get laid. There are exceptions. There are genuinely hot comedians of both genders. But they are unarguably the exception to the rule. And most of them are people who got funny during awkward adolescent phases when they weren't popular. Why are women less likely to be funny? Because women are less likely to need to o find social approval. Women are less likely to need some new thing to find partners. And women who do need to change something to gain social approval or partners are culturally groomed away from being funny in pursuit of that goal. Women are more likely to crash diet and work out, or learn everything there is to know about fashion and make up, or everything there is to know about sucking a dick as part of that pursuit of social integration - because those are the culturally dominant expectations for how women will gain popularity. There's nothing physically stopping women from being funny, but the factual reality is that it's more common for men to be funny than women because it's more common for men to try and be funny, and more common for men to put time and effort into learning to be funny and refining their ability to be funny to truly exceptional levels.
Overall, this is a really good post and argument, and I agree with basically everything that she's saying. Although, I'm not sure why she titled it "Why women aren't funny" (besides to get pageviews) or why you would think it's an argument that supports the idea that men are funnier than woman. She states several times that women can be just as funny as men, but tend to have a much narrower appeal. It definitely explains why, in general, male comedians are more successful than female comedians, because they have a potential for a bigger audience to begin with. If all this time the whole argument was just shorthand for "Male comedians have a higher rate of success than female comedians" then...duh. I'm not sure why people are arguing. Her whole thesis is a really good point to thinking about the likelihood of success for any kind of creative pursuit done by a female because, she's right. I think women do tend to create things that are specifically about "the female experience" which would isolate most men. I know I personally prefer things that I can relate to. It does bother me that comedy/books/movie/art about being a woman is generally taken less seriously as a whole, but you can't really fault men for not understanding why humor about Pap smears is funny or understand why talking about the pressure to be a mom is important. But if people equate "comedy that only/mostly women enjoy" as "not funny" then that's simply wrong.
This is pretty much the main reason why Hitchens argued women aren't as funny as men. Another of his arguments, about the nature of the comedy, was a vastly more intelligent, well-stated version of the mediocre, occasionally stupid piece "Kyrie Abrahams" wrote above. If people want to read a really intelligent person's views on the matter, check this out. Edit- As for the idea that men and women supposedly have different senses of humor, Hitchens directly addressed this too, and with actual science; "At the Stanford University School of Medicine (a place, as it happens, where I once underwent an absolutely hilarious procedure with a sigmoidoscope), the grim-faced researchers showed 10 men and 10 women a sample of 70 black-and-white cartoons and got them to rate the gags on a "funniness scale." To annex for a moment the fall-about language of the report as it was summarized in Biotech Week: The researchers found that men and women share much of the same humor-response system; both use to a similar degree the part of the brain responsible for semantic knowledge and juxtaposition and the part involved in language processing. But they also found that some brain regions were activated more in women. These included the left prefrontal cortex, suggesting a greater emphasis on language and executive processing in women, and the nucleus accumbens … which is part of the mesolimbic reward center." Again, I can't recommend the article enough.
Um, not if those people are men who don’t find introspective self indulgent material funny. You can’t tell people what’s funny. One thing I find interesting about this whole thing is why the fuck do some women care what this guy thinks? My partner hates UFC and thinks its mindless degrading violence and you’d have to be a halfwit to enjoy it. That’s her opinion, and it’s no longer legal to dropkick her in the head then arm bar the shit out of her for having it, so bygones. I just smile and let it slide, I could bring up the fact she likes gossip girl, but I know when to pick my fights. There seems to be swags of “the lady doth protest too much” flowing on this one. Must be shark week.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I meant it would be wrong to say that someone is not funny because only women (or men) think they're funny. Obviously, they're funny if people think they're funny, even if it's just one group of people. I'm not sure if I agree with an idea that someone is funnier than someone else because their humor appeals to a bigger audience, just like I don't think ticket sales equate to a movie being a better movie. But I don't know how my scale of humor is defined. I don't think there can be a grading scale to objectively determine whether someone or something is funnier than something else. I'm interested to hear how this could be possible, or how it would be done. And yes, exactly. "You can't tell people what's funny." But that's exactly what everyone who has ever participated in this "debate" thinks they can do. It's a stupid argument because it's only based entirely on opinions. When people present it like it's based on facts, they sound like an asshole. That's what everyone seems to be upset with Carolla about. I like the article that was posted or Hitchen's article because at least they bother to try coming up with reasons for why people think this way or how trends happen. I find that much more interesting and worthwhile than someone spouting off that women aren't funny in an attempt to be shocking and controversial or dickish.
I honestly can't tell whether you read the Hitchens article or not. Or even scootah's post. Female stand-ups don't have some special niche brand of humor that only appeals to female audience members. Female audience members vastly prefer male comedians. Ask any girl who is into stand-up who her favorites are, and she will invariably rattle off an exclusively male list of names. Your persistent suggestion that there is some secret group of people that find female stand-ups funnier simply doesn't jive with reality. Who is presenting anything as a "fact"? Let alone Carolla, who prefaced his statement with "in my experience..."? And no, people aren't upset with Carolla over that. He could have used the qualifier "In my extremely humble opinion..." and there would still be outrage. People are upset with Carolla because he said something that wasn't politically correct; the suggestion that *shock* there might be something a man is better at than a woman. This is so curious when contrasted with your suggestion above on why people are upset with Carolla. This is the same Hitchens article that garnered him more hate and vitriol than his articles on why Mother Teresa was one of the worst people ever, or how much he hated Christianity and organized religion! What do you expect Carolla to say in an interview, exactly? Roll an articulate, probing two-page explanation off his tongue that took a freaking genius like Hitchens at least a week to write? And if you knew anything about Adam Carolla, you would there was no attempt to be "shocking" or "controversial" or "dickish". He was talking about his (extensive) experiences working on sitcoms, comedy shows, and in stand-up. And unlike most people in Hollywood, he wasn't going to censor himself to please the liberal press and entertainment media.
I... I don't even. "Funny" is obviously a subjective determination. A judgment of whether something is funny or not is obviously going to be... an opinion. I don't see the need to qualify every time I call someone unfunny with the statement "in my opinion," because of fucking course it's an opinion, and only an idiot wouldn't get that. (And, as an aside, saying "well, that's just your opinion" has to be the dumbest form of rebuttal known to man. It's the adult version of "Nuh-uh you are", except not as mature, because it doesn't even make a claim.) The statement "obviously they're funny if people think they're funny" is not just not right, it's not even wrong.
I actually think that her argument veered way too far into stupidity for my liking, even if there was something to the central premise. First of all, "Def Jam" is not the same as "black comedians", and to imply that they are is really fucking dumb. There are occasionally white/hispanic/asian Def Jam comics, and it is a particular brand of humor. I'm not even going to to go into how lazy her characterization is (mostly because I don't like many Def Jam comics and don't feel like defending them), but to lump say, Ron Funches and Wyatt Cenac into that crowd is just silly. I actually don't disagree that a lot of female comedians talk about female-centric things, but I think the fault goes both ways. Speaking from (fairly vast) personal experience, people have begun to expect women to talk about women things and find it abrasive and stop listening otherwise. For their parts, a lot of female comedians have been happy NOT to transcend that and take what is the easy way out. This pretty much happens with any sort of comedy minority. Jo Koy, I am looking at you and your stupid accents right now. Margaret Cho, double offender.