Q: “Is it hard to be a woman doing stand-up?” by Viv Groskop

I only know as much about comedy as someone who has been doing it on the amateur circuit for a couple of years. But even very early on I realised that the whole “woman thing” is a bit of a myth.

Audiences genuinely do not care whether you are man, woman or insect. Actually that’s not true. They are heavily biased towards insects. Bridget Christie has appeared alongside Harry Hill in a homemade ant costume. It was spectacular. (If you have not heard her BBC Radio 4 show Bridget Christie Minds the Gap, you must look it up now.)

What audiences do care about is whether you are confident and happy to be on stage. And that is where things break down. It’s a stereotype that women are not as confident as men. It’s a load of old ant excreta but most people believe it to be true. I looked up the ant excreta, by the way. It really exists. It’s mostly liquid, “containing only the tiniest solid particles.”

But let’s remember stereotypes exist for a reason: they have some grounding in our lived experience. Many women believe they are not that confident. And that thought makes them less confident. It makes them think that maybe they can’t get up and say stupid (or even intelligent) things in public. It makes them think they are not funny.

I loved being on stage from an early age. So it wasn’t a lack of confidence that kept me away from stand-up for many years. It was more a lack of imagination and guts. I didn’t know how to make it work or how to get up and do it. It took me over thirty years to work out that you find that stuff out by just doing it.

The asking of the question – “Is it hard as a woman?” – makes it seem like more of a fact than it is. When really it’s not a fact at all, it’s just ant shit with very few solid particles. We need to let it go. Meanwhile I must go and research communes in St Lucia.

I Laughed, I Cried: How One Woman Took On Stand-Up and (Almost) Ruined Her Life by Viv Groskop (Orion, £11.99) is out now.