Follow These Funny Ladies:

Stephanie McRae:

Watch Stephanie’s comedy on YouTube.

Nichelle Stephens:

Follow Nichelle on Twitter @niche, where she’s sure to be live tweeting your favorite shows and follow her other blog @CupcakeBlog Also, check out Chicks & Giggles!

Hadiyah Robinson:

She’s going on the road with the fabulously funny Erica Watson this summer across the U.S. hitting every clubs, bars and baby showers. Please follow them on @ThatRoadLife on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Maryssa Smith:

Check out Maryssa’s shows. She produces two monthly shows, Fashionably Funny at Broadway Comedy Club and Merriment and Mortification at Otto’s Shrunken Head.

Phoebe Robinson:

Catch Phoebe on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and follow her on Twitter @PRobinsonComedy.

Yamaneika Saunders:

Watch Yamaneika on Oxygen’s new show, “Funny Girls,” premiering April 7th. Also, follow her on Twitter @Yamaneika!

Chloe Hilliard:

Follow Chloe on Instagram & Twitter @Chloe_Hilliard and go see her headline live at Caroline’s on April 28th!

Akilah Hughes:

Check out Akilah on YouTube & follow her on social media!

Loni Love:

Catch her on “The Real” or on her stand up comedy tour!

Del Harrison:

Follow Del on Twitter and catch her on a new TV show that she can’t tell us about quite yet!

1. Stephanie McRae: “Black women are funny, smart & charismatic! “The toughest part about doing comedy as a Black woman is doing comedy as a Black woman. There’s been plenty of times I was bumped from major shows that I was scheduled to be on because a more seasoned male comic just showed up. ” McRae says. “Being a woman does play a big part in the gigs I get or don’t get.” McRae says comedy is about truth & she gets to bring hers and “that’s where the funny is!”

2. Nichelle Stephens: “Women in comedy often don’t get the big paying hosting gigs or even more important, the writing jobs.” Source:Nichelle Stephens “Black comics are often underestimated for their writing skills when it comes to tv and screenwriting.” Nichelle says there’s “only one in a line-up–either one woman or one African-American for a mainstream show.” Which is why she created her weekly stand-up show, Chicks & Giggles.

3. Hadiyah Robinson: “There’s a stereotype of the Black women voice in comedy, but our voice is as vast & varied as our shades.” Source:Darryl Harrison “Sometimes clubs want to relegate you to a certain nights or shows because they think your comedy won’t translate to everyone. There’s the shows that don’t want to have more than one woman on the bill,” Hadiyah mentions, but that doesn’t get her down. “But Black girls aren’t just sitting back waiting. We’re coming together and making magic happen: tours, podcasts, web series, TV, movies & books.”

4. Maryssa Smith: ‘Many popular female comics are hypersexuallized. I don’t think we have to sling tits and ass or the fantasy of having sex with us to be funny.” Source:Mindy Tucker “Male comics are never expected to be sexy, they are just expected to be funny,” she says. “The typical female comedic archetype is the ‘dumb slut.’ My voice is not sexual. I joke about sex, but I have no interest in writing jokes to just end up being in some guy’s spank bank. I’m not saying a woman can’t choose to be sex-positive. Is that really your choice or are you allowing others to objectify you to fit in?”

5. Phoebe Robinson: “My number one goal is funny first, and then you can have a lesson or a message that you want to get across.” Source:Getty “Being a woman of color in comedy has been an issue, but I just roll with it and know that my career is going to make it just a skosh easier for the next W.O.C. that comes along. W.O.C. should be represented more and that will require more people of color to be in positions of power. But what interests me most is creating my own vehicle. I don’t want to try and fit into someone else’s mold.”

6. Yamaneika Saunders: “Comedy helps me to connect with the inner child in me that was always overlooked and dismissed.” Source:Oxygen.com There’s a “sense of responsibility we feel as people of color to be a representation for our ENTIRE race. Being a Black woman [in comedy] is an issue because you’re Black women are often pitted against each other which breeds resentment & disdain, I’m praying that with more opportunities that dynamic will change. I would love to see Black women get together & say ‘Hey, let’s do our show.’ We can be the leaders.

7. Chloe Hilliard: ‘I am Black & I am a woman. I don’t play either of them up or down for laughs.” Source:Andre Austin “Men don’t see us as being relatable. They don’t want to hear about what it’s like to be a woman so that means you have to work that much harder to be undeniably funny so they see past your ovaries,” Chloe admits. “Comedy is dominated by misfits. It’s hard to be racist when we’re all the underdog in an industry that most won’t succeed in.” Chloe’s success is in comedy being her bread & butter. That’s not easy!

8. Akilah Hughes: “Comedy is inherently about finding something funny in adversity, so I think Black women make great natural comedians.” Source:Jen Mussari She’s the mastermind behind, “Meet Your New Black Girlfriend” on YouTube and her favorite thing about comedy is that it’s changing. Established comedic career paths are overwhelmingly White male, so you have to have really thick skin to be able to handle the onslaught of hacky rape and racist jokes. It gets old. I do think it is changing for the better, though. I’m seeing more & more women perform.”

9. Loni Love: “People like women to be pretty. If women aren’t pretty, there needs to be something (audience members) can look at or joke about.” Source:Getty Women may be featured, but I can’t count how many times guys walk up and say, “I’ve never seen a woman close the show,” Loni says. “Everybody thinks my audiences are going to be Black. I do so many mainstream shows. Once the club owner sees that, he’s like, ‘Oh, she’s not only drawing from the African American community, she’s drawing from everybody,'” Love says of proving herself as a comedienne.