On 24 February 2026 Politics in Pubs Manchester met for a discussion about the comedy industry with comedian Claire Berry.  Claire is the founder of the ‘Fem de la Femme’ CIC which was  set-up to run women’s comedy nights and confidence-building workshops.  Fem de la Femme closed down after Claire was cancelled for not complying with the gender ideology narrative.

Introduction

Claire began by explaining that she entered the world of stand-up comedy in 2019.  The comedy circuit is very male orientated with plenty of old school sexism.  In spite of that, Claire loved doing stand-up and soon realised that there was a demand for female comedians among female fans.  So she set up and hosted the Fem de la Femme CIC to showcase female comedians – the event was so popular it sold out every time.

Despite having been involved previously in performing arts, Claire was unaware of the rising problem of gender ideology and its encroachment upon women’s rights.  She was puzzled why the popular children’s author J.K. Rowling was being regarded as an enemy of the state.  When Claire learned the meaning of the term ‘terf’ and what it meant for women like Rowling fighting back against gender ideology, she thought it ironic because women are already side-lined on the comedy circuit and didn’t need any more reasons to be excluded by men.

Cancelled

For a while, Claire played the ‘kind and inclusive’ game by allowing the occasional trans identifying male comedian to perform at the women’s comedy night.  However, she began to notice a mixed response to them from the female audience members.  But that didn’t seem to matter to the venue managers in their echo chambers of gender ideology who insisted that men should be included on the bill for a female comedy event.  Sadly, this insistence – and online abuse from trans activists – resulted in Claire and Fem de la Femme being cancelled after three years of providing a space for women to participate in stand-up comedy.  For Claire, this was traumatic because Fem de la Femme really mattered to her – as the comedian who founded and hosted the event, she loved the opportunities it gave to other women.  It appears that the comedy industry is a very unwelcoming environment for women and men who believe in the material reality of sex.

Polarising

Claire feels that the world of stand-up comedy is polarising into two camps – queer friendly, inclusive and sensitive – where any whiff of a gender critical comment from a woman on the circuit means swift and public cancellation – or male-dominated gigs brandishing as many ‘isms’ as possible to push back against censorship and cancellations.  The scope of acceptable material is diminishing, and many promoters and performers are so captured by gender ideology and social justice tick boxes they are unaware of majority views on sex and gender.  The sector feeds off its own echo chamber and runs the risk of alienating audiences.  The future of comedy looks bleak.

Conclusion

Women’s place in comedy has always been challenging but is now stuck between the old school misogyny and the new misogyny that’s erasing their identity.  However, performer Rosie Kay from Freedom in the Arts aims to fight back with new comedy led by real women.

Discussion

The men performing comedy at Fem de la Femme were very disparaging of women.

Most comedy offends someone but it encourages discussion of different topics – such as gender ideology which seems to be crossing over into everything.  There is no need to cancel people – if you don’t like it, don’t go!

Alternative comedians had a similar cancelling effect on old school comedy in the 80s.  The new comedy was funnier and made the older comics look like dinosaurs.  But now there seems to be a kind of humourless puritanism and comedy can’t survive like that.

Saying that women are women is not outrageous.  It must be awful being cancelled for stating a fact.

It is a tragedy that Fem de la Femme was cancelled.  A new terf comedy event would be fantastic.  The tide is turning on this debate.

Alternative comedy used to take the mickey out of things like this – think Life of Brian, Little Britain, Ricky Gervais etc.  Cancellation seems to have increased dramatically since 2019.  Queer and non binary nights seem to get plenty of gigs.

Jan Raymond predicted that women would be excluded from their own sex by men.  She wrote about the extent of woman-hating e.g. the witch-burning of millions of women during the inquisition.  Even our own government is not upholding the law on women’s sex-based rights.

The issue of trans is a mixture of misogyny, mental health issues, and sexual deviance.  The alternative comedians of the 80s wanted to take down the established entertainers.

Being part of the trans and non-binary group seems to act as a get-out-of-jail-free card as though it makes them untouchable.  We could do with a female Comedy Unleashed.

Open mike nights are the best way to get into comedy – if your material makes friends laugh go to an open mike night and try it out on an audience.

The BBC is woke and likes to virtue-signal – it also has a powerful stranglehold over who succeeds in comedy. The best way to circumnavigate this is by entering their competitions – Claire succeeded in being awarded a BBC grant for all-female comedy just before she was cancelled.  People are starting to see through the BBC – fans voting with their feet will keep good comedy going.

Gender ideology is rife – even schools are captured by it and people are too scared to disagree.  Kids are being taught nonsense when it comes to sex and gender.  Most people are cowards and women are sycophantic to trans identifying men in pursuit of being ‘kind and inclusive’.

Alternative comics didn’t destroy the old school comedians – their humour just stopped being funny.  There should be no need for a venue to cancel a comedian, the audience should decide – either the material is funny or it isn’t.  Comedy should evolve naturally rather than being silenced.

The women at Fem de la Femme were hilarious and amazing.  Cancellation of this event represents a much wider loss to the community and to female comedy.  We need to keep chipping away at the venues to recognise that they are out of touch with the wider world in this respect.

Unfortunately for venues, DEI considerations are a key criterion in funding applications from local authorities, the Arts Council. and National Lottery and in tendering applications.  It turns out that being inclusive is exclusive if you happen to be an actual woman.

Politics in Pubs would like to thank Claire for sharing her experiences in the comedy industry.  We would also like to thank our lovely hosts at The Welcome Inn.  Cheers all!