Nigerian comedian Anita Alaire Afoke Asuoha, popularly known as Real Warri Pikin, has shed light on the challenges female comedians face in Nigeria’s male-dominated stand-up comedy scene.
Speaking during an interview with Channels Television, Real Warri Pikin, 34, highlighted the systemic barriers that contribute to the scarcity of female comedians in the country.
According to Real Warri Pikin, female comedians must overcome significant hurdles to achieve recognition and success.
She described the comedy industry as heavily skewed towards men, requiring women to exert double the effort to stand out.
Despite her own notable success, she admitted facing criticism and derogatory comments from fans, critics, and peers.
Real Warri Pikin recalled her experience during a show in Abuja last year, where she was surprised to find a lack of female comedians among her guests.
She took to social media, asking her followers to recommend female comedians, which led to numerous tags and messages from aspiring performers.
However, she noted that many of these women were struggling due to the male dominance in the industry.
In her words:
“There are not many women that are doing standup comedy right now. I can actually count them. When I did my show in Abuja last year, I was like “no female comedian?” So I did a post on my page and said, “if you know any female comedian wey good, tag am” and I was shocked. I saw a lot of people tagged and I reached out to them via their DMs.
It was only a few of them that had videos of themselves doing standup here and there. I had conversations with them and they will tell you, it’s a male dominated industry. It is hard.
For woman to dey male dominated industry, you need to work twice as hard before they go come talk say na because you fine na why you funny. So I started having conversations with them, talking to them. It’s not easy for this male dominated industry, but you need to know the craft, and you need to be very strategic. I feel like for more female comedians to fill up the space, we need more encouragement.
I remember when I won standup comedian of the year, no be small curse them curse me for comment section, and if other female comedians see those comments, they will go back to their shell. There are a lot of very funny female comedians but there are a lot of factors.
First, you’re a woman. For you to be woman for this part of the world, the world don give you 1-0. And then the society, and then there’s how people see women.
Even till now, I still get it, as big as I am. You just need to ojiri as a woman. When you don understand the dynamics around the industry, you need to chop ojiri tell yourself all die na die. I must do it regardless.“
