In Search of a Professional Image: How Women Comedians Engage Gender in Their Work

ABSTRACT Individuals who differ from what is typical in their occupation face a dilemma about how to incorporate their “ill‐fitting” social characteristics into their professional image. This study investigates how women working in the male‐dominated world of stand‐up comedy present their gender and whether this evolves over times of social change. Our mixed‐methods, longitudinal design utilized 540 performer profiles from 195 women comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (The Fringe) from 2015 to 2022. We identified two distinct presentation styles: downplaying and displaying gender. We also found that comedians who downplayed gender were more consistent in their presentation than those who displayed gender and that the comedians themselves, rather than year, determined their style. Our work offers three key contributions. First, it confirms the distinction between downplaying and displaying gender but adds that these concepts are enduring over time, and in an under‐researched career. Second, it provides nuance to Cunningham and Obodaru's pursuit of the aspirational self theory, showing that women who are promotion‐focused with their careers may take either a promotion‐ or prevention‐oriented approach to how they present gender. Displaying gender was consistent with a promotion‐orientation while downplaying gender was prevention‐oriented. Finally, it extends understanding of professional image by showing that individual characteristics, as opposed to situational context, are likely to determine gender presentation and that the aesthetic labor in comedy may be geared toward achieving a different style to what is dominant in other areas of the performing arts.