Hysteria Reconsidered: Are Women (Finally) Funny?

"Joan Rivers was the first comedienne to turn standard-issue self-deprecation into a proto-punk, stare-down dare: 'I’m here, I’m ugly, get used to it.' But Rivers was performing way before these women, and their mothers, were born. What forces unleashed and mainstreamed today’s impetuous, un-blushable broads?"