There are no cooties at this comedy show.

UCLA’s comedy club Shenanigans is once again hosting its “Men Aren’t Funny” show, kicking off their first performance of the year Friday. Gabby Klijian, a third-year English student and the president of Shenanigans, said the club frequently puts on “Men Aren’t Funny” as a way to exclusively showcase female and nonbinary performers in a variety of comedy routines, including improv, stand-up and sketch performances.

“Comedy, like a lot of other fields, is historically male-dominated,” Klijian said. “In the past, people have said, ‘Oh, women aren’t funny.’ So this show is giving female and nonbinary performers more of a chance to perform and … a platform that isn’t always given to them.”

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Klijian said when she first began doing comedy at UCLA, the uneven dynamics between men and women in the comedy scene were apparent. She said it’s not that male comedians get more stage time because they are more confident or outgoing than female and nonbinary comedians – rather, it is because they’re often just louder. With “Men Aren’t Funny,” Klijian said Shenanigans gives women and nonbinary comedians the chance to take center stage and prove they can command the spotlight as well.

UCLA is not the only comedy scene that struggles with these dynamics, said Ella Henrickson, a fourth-year biology student and the co-head of Shenanigans’ improv group Identity Crisis. Henrickson said the greater comedy world not only grapples with gender imbalances, but it also frequently highlights men who use stories centered around women as source material.

“When you think about stand-up you see on the internet or comedy you see on the internet, a lot of it is so gendered,” Henrickson said. “Men have a huge platform, but also, so much of the content is about women or about relationships and about stuff that revolves around women – and so I think it’s important to reclaim that space.”

In addition to recruiting student performers, Klijian said Shenanigans scouts female and nonbinary comedians at open mic events across Los Angeles for “Men Aren’t Funny,” noting that past participants such as Emmy winner Quinta Brunson and Emmy nominee Nicole Byer have since launched successful comedy careers. For this show, she said the headliners will include local comedians Alia Atkins and Han Williamson.

Although there aren’t any guidelines on the comedians’ content, because of the theme of “Men Aren’t Funny,” most of the show’s material spotlights feminism and the experiences of women and nonbinary comedians, said Karina Dutko, a geography graduate student\ and the co-head of Shenanigans’ stand-up team.

“We can talk about topics like mental health and other things that women experience completely differently from other people,” Dutko said. “We want to put this emphasis on issues and topics and themes that women and nonbinary people can relate to, because it’s bringing awareness to what our experience looks like.”

But though gender is a common theme throughout “Men Aren’t Funny,” there are still moments when the women and nonbinary performers onstage spotlight their talents outside the scope of social identity, Henrickson said. Because improv lacks scripted content, for example, she said the material each comedian comes up with on the spot may not necessarily address gender dynamics the same way other performers do.

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“(For) other departments, like stand-up and sketch comedy – it’s about focusing on more gendered storylines or jokes about being a woman or being nonbinary,” she said. “But for improv, it’s really just us being women and doing improv.”

Still, the ability to come together for a show made up of solely women and nonbinary comedians is breaking social norms in and of itself, Henrickson said. By having a space for a group traditionally left out of the comedy scene, Shenanigans is showing UCLA that anyone can be funny, she said.

“Comedy is for everyone,” Henrickson said. “This is our chance to make sure that the conversation is equal and to riff off of the societal expectations for comedy and make a joke out of it.”