On a practical level, I'm uncomfortable at comedy clubs because there are so many shitty dude comics who have made my life miserable. If I go to a comedy club and I look around, I don't know which of the dudes lining the wall told me that I was too fat to get raped. It makes me nauseous. But that was a couple years ago, and meanwhile, comedy has changed a lot.
Lindy WestI feel like women in comedy have staked out space for themselves and circled the wagons in this inspiring way to say that it's absolutely unacceptable and ludicrous to suggest that women aren't funny anymore in 2016. It just makes you look like a dinosaur.
Lindy WestJust live! Live now! Don't wait, and don't let anyone tell you that you're a work in progress.
Lindy WestI don't want any woman to think that I don't have empathy and deep care for all women's body issues. I just want to make sure that we don't only focus on the most palatable ones.
Lindy WestI fervently believe that people shouldn't stay in bad relationships just because of some artificial rom-com notion of true love being "forever." In fact, I think that the pressure of conforming to that framework ruins-literally RUINS-a lot of people's lives.
Lindy WestThere's something behind the decision to choose to lash out at a woman. The answer to how to fix internet trolling is like fixing sexism. How do you do that? I'm of the opinion that discourse helps, that changing people's minds changes people's actions. On a more practical level, I do enjoy sassing back at trolls, because I always win, because my job makes me better at arguing. If I can frustrate or embarrass a troll, then that lodges in that person's brain that trolling me is not a consequence-free hobby.
Lindy WestIn my freshman year of college, when a male professor asked the class, "Who here identifies as a feminist?" Only one girl raised her hand, and the rest of us just sat there. He basically just shamed us for the rest of the classโโ - โโin a constructive way. He went around the room and said to each girl, "Why didn't you raise your hand? Feminism means men and women deserve the same rights, and that the balance in the world is currently tilted in men's favour.
Lindy West