Why do so many female comedians struggle to be taken funnily? Is your mother to blame? Do you like broad beans? And why is there an ‘X’ in First Person?
If Colm Toibín’s Brooklyn had been written by a woman, would it have been a smash hit? Would anyone have cared one whit for a story about a young woman and her domestic struggles, if that young woman had been created and written by another woman? No. They wouldn’t.