Editor's Introduction

Abstract

> “A majority of white women, faced with the historic choice between the first female president and a vial of weaponized testosterone, said, ‘I'll take option B, I just don't like her.’” > > —samantha bee, “the morning after,” full frontal with samantha bee , november 9, 2016 The year 2016, whatever else it may have been, was a tremendous year for women in comedy. Samantha Bee's show Full Frontal became a standard-bearer for feminist news analysis among the stag club of late-night television satire, tackling issues such as rape kit testing, diaper subsidies, workplace sexual harassment, and the international criminalization of feminism (from “nasty women” to Pussy Riot ).1 Feminist comedians—including Negin Farsad, Ali Wong, Fawzia Mirza, Leslie Jones, Amy Schumer, Sam Jay, Issa Rae, Tig Notaro, Heben Nigatu, and Tracy Clayton—have forcefully used stand-up, television, filmmaking, and social media as popular platforms for advocating intersectional issues regarding gender, race, and social justice. As Farsad (director of The Muslims Are Coming! ) put it in her “Scientific Taxonomy of Haters,” “I am a social justice comedian… . It is my goal to convert the haters … [especially] the swing haters … [who] are like ideological sluts because they move from not hating to hating, and they do so because they don't have enough information.” Farsad …