“To view success in comedy only through a sexualized male gaze is poison. Women don't do comedy in order to secure a potential mate, and to look at comedy through that lens is insulting and not a little bit ignorant. This is the sort of piece that would never in a million years be written about male comedians or how they look, and the super-flimsy pegging to a comedian whose heyday was 40 years ago with a single piece of not-great contemporary evidence (Tina Fey "trying to look ugly" as Liz Lemon is still pretty damned attractive) shows just how many straws you have to grasp at to attempt to make being a pretty woman in comedy a liability. It's a blatant example of starting with a theory and then searching for evidence that'll fit in and support it. Comedy is about doing silly things to get laughs, and how attractive you are is not usually a major part of that. No male comedians are out there attempting to look like stable, datable hunks in order to get laughs. Some are very attractive and get laughs from being silly, such as Rob Lowe or Joel McHale. Some are less attractive and also get laughs from being silly. Sometimes they play up or down their looks for laughs. Sometimes they don't, as how they look doesn't have anything to do with their work. Women are exactly the same! They all do things unique to them in order to be funny. Playing a weird or silly character in order to get laughs is not specific to one gender. When you bring in this pseudo-science horseshit about evolution and how men can't respect pretty, funny women, you're ignoring the mountains and mountains of evidence to the contrary. At the end of the day, there are all sorts of women doing comedy, and they all look different. And it doesn't really fucking matter what they look like as long as they're making people laugh.”