Before Sigrid Farmer Tusvik left the Humorprisen 2018 in harnisk, she asked her male colleagues a question: How would you have reacted if it was only the women who won all the prizes? Even I had replied that it would be a statistical deviation.
Herreprisen 2018 Debate
Based on the Tusviks op I got the impression that Norway is one of the komikerkvinner. A quick Google search led me to a Wikipedia page with the list of Norwegian comedians – 190 in number. Of them I spoke around 19 per cent of women (including Tusvik).
One should of course not rely solely on Wikipedia. But the impression matches my experiences from standup performances. There are often five comedians on the stage, and one of them is like a woman. That only four of the 26 nominees for the Humorprisen 2018 were women, thus provides meaning. This is not far away from the fifth which women may constitute in komikerbransjen. Aftenposten recently wrote about the industry’s kvinneflukt.
Ashamed of me
Both Tusvik and Else Kåss Furuseth refers to the Vixen awards, where the women won the prices. After a quick search also gives this opinion. In this prisavviklingen, affecting more than just comedians, bugnet that of nominated women.
“What must we do to be in the gang?”, ask Tusvik in his discussion of the Humorprisen. If I wanted to get one group of people to win an award or competition, I would first made sure to have enough of those that took part. I would have started with recruitment.
Tusvik is fabulous fun. she Should rather encourage debate about how we can get more female comedians?