Katherine Ryan on Feminism, Achievement, Criticism and Fearlessness.
‘Especially in this nation, I believe you craved me. You didn't comprehend it but you craved me, to alleviate some of your own shame.” The performer, the forty-two-year-old Canadian comic who has lived in the UK for almost 20 years, was accompanied by her brand new fourth child. She takes off her breast pumps so they won't create an distracting sound. The initial impression you see is the incredible ability of this woman, who can fully beam parental devotion while forming sequential thoughts in complete phrases, and without getting distracted.
The following element you notice is what she’s known for – a natural, unaffected ballsiness, a dismissal of affectation and duplicity. When she emerged in the UK stand-up scene in 2008, her statement was that she was strikingly attractive and didn’t pretend not to know it. “Attempting stylish or beautiful was seen as catering to male approval,” she remembers of the that period, “which was the reverse of what a comedian would do. It was a fashion to be humble. If you went on stage in a glamorous outfit with your underwear and heels, like, ‘I think I’m gorgeous,’ that would be seen as really alienating, but I did it because that’s what I wanted.”
Then there was her comedy, which she describes breezily: “Women, especially, needed someone to arrive and be like: ‘Hey, that’s OK. You can be a feminist and have a boob job and have been a bit of a promiscuous person for a while. You can be human as a parent, as a spouse and as a selector of men. You can be someone who is afraid of men, but is confident enough to criticize them; you don’t have to be deferential to them the entire time.’”
‘If you performed in your little push-up bra and heels, that would be seen as really alienating’
The consistent message to that is an emphasis on what’s authentic: if you have your infant with you, you most likely have your breast pumps; if you have the facial structure of a young person, you’ve most likely undergone procedures; if you want to lose weight, well, there are medications for that. “I’m not on any yet, but I’ll look into them when I’ve stopped breastfeeding,” she says. It addresses the root of how feminism is understood, which it strikes me remains largely unchanged in the past 50 years: empowerment means looking great but without ever thinking about it; being universally desired, but never chasing the male gaze; having an unshakeable sense of self which God forbid you would ever alter cosmetically; and in addition to all that, women, especially, are supposed to never think about money but nevertheless prosper under the pressure of late capitalist conditions. All of which is kept afloat by the majority of us bullshitting, most of the time.
“For a long time people reacted: ‘What? She just talks about things?’ But I’m not trying to be provocative all the time. My personal stories, behaviors and mistakes, they reside in this realm between pride and embarrassment. It took place, I talk about it, and maybe catharsis comes out of the jokes. I love telling people private thoughts; I want people to share with me their secrets. I want to know missteps people have made. I don’t know why I’m so keen for it, but I feel it like a bond.”
Ryan was raised in Sarnia, Ontario, a place that was not especially wealthy or urban and had a lively community theater theater scene. Her dad managed an industrial company, her mother was in IT, and they expected a lot of her because she was sparky, a high achiever. She longed to get out from the age of about seven. “It was the type of place where people are very happy to live close to their parents and stay there for a lifetime and have one another's children. When I visit now, all these kids look really known to me, because I spent my childhood with both their parents.” But didn’t she marry her own high school sweetheart? She traveled back to Sarnia, caught up with an old flame, who she dated as a teenager, and now – six years later – they have three children together, plus Violet, now 16, who Ryan had raised until then as a lone parent. “Right,” says Ryan. “Sometimes I think there’s another life where I avoided that, and it’s still just Violet and me, chic, worldly, portable. But we cannot completely leave behind where we originated, it seems.”
‘We are always connected to where we originated’
She got away for a bit, aged 18, and moved to Toronto, which she adored. These were the period working there, which has been an additional point of debate, not just that she worked – and liked the job – in a venue (except this is a inaccuracy: “You would be fired for being topless; you’re not allowed to take your shirt off”), but also for a bit in one of her performances where she discussed giving a manager a blowjob in return for being allowed to go home early. It crossed so many boundaries – what even was that? Manipulation? Sex work? Unethical action? Lack of solidarity (towards whoever it was who had to stay late so she could leave early)? Whatever it was, you definitely were not meant to joke about it.
Ryan was surprised that her story generated controversy – she was fond of the guy! She also wanted to go home early. But it revealed something wider: a strategic absolutism around sex, a sense that the cost of the #MeToo movement was performed chastity. “I’ve always found this interesting, in debates about sex, agreement and manipulation, the people who misinterpret the subtlety of it. Therefore if this is abuse, why isn’t that abuse?” She brings up the comparison of certain remarks to lyrics in popular music. “Some individuals said: ‘Well, how’s that distinct?’ I thought: ‘How is it comparable?’”
She would not have come to London in 2008 had it not been for her then boyfriend. “Everyone said: ‘Don’t go to London, they have pests there.’ And I found it difficult, because I was suddenly struggling.”
‘I knew I had comedy’
She got a job in business, was found to have an autoimmune condition, which can sometimes make it hard to get pregnant, and at 23, decided to try to have a baby. “When you’re first diagnosed something – I was quite sick at the time – you go to the worst-case scenario. My logic with my boyfriend was, we’ve had so many ups and downs, if we haven't separated by now, we never will. Now I see how extended life is, and how many things can transform. But at 23, I was unaware.” She succeeded in get pregnant and had Violet.
The next bit sounds as nerve-wracking as a tense comedy film. While on maternity leave, she would look after Violet in the day and try to make her way in comedy in the evening, carrying her daughter with her. She was aware from her sales job that she had no problem winning people over, and she had confidence in her fast thinking from her time at Hooters; more than that, she says bluntly, “I was confident I had material.” The whole industry was shot through with sexism – she won a major comedy award in 2008, just over a year after she’d started performing, a prize that was conceived in the context of a ongoing debate about whether women could be funny
