Fellow Takepart blogger Katie Halper recently talked about the annoying, backwards notion expressed last year in Vanity Fair that women aren’t funny and then the follow up piece in 2008 basically saying “woopsies! We meant to say to say that women are funny.” The while Vanity Fair discussion for lots of folks talking as bloggers continue to write about this absurd and annoying topic.

Can we just drop the lame debate that women are somehow comically inferior to men? Enough already. Yes some female comedians, as Christopher Hitchens says “often talk about things that women can relate to”relationships with men, babies, periods, shopping, love. As a man, I can’t relate to all that.” Well guess what? Some male comedians often talk about things that men can relate to-relationships with women, babies, their dicks, sports, love. And as a woman, I can relate to all that. I may not have the exact same experiences with some “men” topics but I can relate to the emotions behind those topics the same way an intelligent audience member should be able to relate to “women” topics. Our experiences may differ but most feelings are universal.

Besides you can apply Hitchens retarded theory to all comedians: Black comedians, Asian comedians, Hispanic comedians, Irish comedians, White comedians, Arab comedians, tall comedians, short comedians, fat comedians, thin comedians, old comedians, young comedians, poor comedians, rich comedians and so on and so forth. Often those comedians talk about things that only their race, size, class can easily relate to, and as an average sized, middle class Italian woman I can’t relate to everything Black, Hispanic, Irish, White, Arab, tall, short, fat, thin, old, young, poor or rich comedians discuss. So does that make them not funny as well?

To me, comedy is about truth. A comedians job to take their own unique and honest perspectives and experiences and deliver them in an entertaining and relateable way to audiences-that’s what makes it funny. There will never be a comedian that everyone in the entire world agrees is funny. Never. So let’s just let everyone have their chance to do their comedy thang and if you don’t like her or his sense of humor, you don’t have to watch or listen!

What sucks is that often I find that when women talk about women or being a woman it’s categorized as “female comedy.” Our “female comedy” is shuffled off to Lifetime and Oxygen whereas men talking about men or being a man is just considered comedy. Last year I pitched a video series to a comedy website and the response was “we love this idea, it’s really funny. However it’s a bit too “female” for us why don’t you pitch it to the WE network?” Great! And why don’t you shove your now defunct website up your sexist a**?

Here are some other responses to the Vanity Fair article by both bloggers and readers leaving comments:

• (The Onion)AV Club
• Women & Hollywood Blog
• Broadsheet
• Jezebel

I’d love to respond to thee comment “perhaps they [women] are funny but they sound more like men then women with their raunchy humor.” written on this blog post but I this here blog ain’t the place for me to run my f**king raunchy manly mouth.

So my opinion? Who gives a sh*t what you look like or what your gender is, if you’re a good comic, you’re a good comic, period. ( And no, that was not a menstrual period joke as Hitchens assumes dominates my joke repertoire).

And as far as that yammering regarding a female comedians appearance “… they couldn’t be funny if they were pretty. Now a female comedian has to be pretty”even sexy”to get a laugh” [Vanity Fair] again, who cares!? (I once had a fellow female comic friend threaten to cut off all of her gorgeous long hair because she wanted to “look less pretty and girly so that she’d be taken more seriously as a comic” WHAT? That statement made me so sad, here was this funny and adorable girl who was scrutinizing her appearance in order to fit some dumb, false, society standard. You don’t have to be a self-deprecating, slob to be funny. You have to be YOU!) If you’re hot and funny, all the power to you. If you’re not “hot” and funny, all the power to you. Male or female, the funnier you are the hotter you become in my eyes, but then again what do I know? I’m just a girl.