I presented comedian Chris Fleming with a theory. When he answered the phone for our interview ahead of his performances in Seattle, I proposed that his comedy is all about discussing gender in an absurd way. He has a bit about the snacks at Trader Joe’s that only women can see, and another about his sixth sense for when a restaurant is owned by brothers. Fleming broke through on YouTube with his character Gayle Waters-Waters, a high-strung, WASPy suburbanite from the fictional Northbread, Massachusetts, who is crushed, daily, by the weight of expectation in her life.

Most gendered comedy is essentially: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus,