Comedy, sexism, and motherhood

Ester Steinberg Transcript

Sabrina Merage Naim
From Evoke Media I'm Sabrina Merage Naim. With me is Kassia Binkowski, and this is Breaking Glass, a series of conversations with women around the world who are shattering glass ceilings and challenging social norms. They are audacious, gutsy, and their stories are echoed across borders and generations in a rallying cry that is changing the narrative for women everywhere. We're joined today by Brooklyn-based stand up comedian Ester Steinberg. Ester has been in the comedy circuit since she was 16 years old, trying to make her way on stage at the one comedy club in Tampa, Florida. The message she received: no girls allowed. She then made her way to LA before eventually settling with her comedian husband in New York. Now after having their first child and seeing how her life is changing as a new mother, Ester's body of work has changed as well.

Kassia Binkowski
Sabrina, we are often having conversations with women around the world dealing with serious and sometimes somber topics, Ester bring some levity and comedic anecdotes to what it's like for a woman and a mother in the world of stand up comedy and how her life experiences inform her comedic outlook. She's reflecting on how she's approached her career during parenthood in a pandemic, as well as the sexism she's endured and the confidence she's had to build up to find humor in the mess of motherhood. Take a listen.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Hi, Ester.

Ester Steinberg
Hi.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Thank you for being with us. So I do want, for the purposes of our listeners, to get a little bit of the background of where you're from and how you started your career. Give us your life story in five seconds.

Ester Steinberg
Sure. It's really weird. So when I was a very little girl, I was like, "I want to be in entertainment. I want to be an actress. I want to do plays". My dad basically lectured me and was like, "if you think you're going to make it an entertainment, you have to do stand up comedy". I was maybe like seven, eight years old. He did stand up when Sinbad and... I don't know, way back. Late 80s, early 90s. Failed, became a lawyer, had three girls. I was the youngest, and I guess I showed a lot of interest. And then I started taking little writing classes. And he helped me write jokes. And in high school, I was doing a bunch of stand up shows. And then I told my parents I want to go to theater school, went to NYU. And while I was at NYU, I did theater, but I was also doing stand up. And I was like, "yeah, I'm a comedian". And I just felt really cool. And then I moved to LA, did comedy. Did a reality show called Funny Girls, which was a wild ride, but I'm grateful for. And then recorded an album, just did a special, had to baby. You know, using everything I have to do comedy. I love it so much. And there's so much to hate and so much to love. It's a roller coaster.

Sabrina Merage Naim
We're going to tease out a lot of that. Because you did just give us your entire life story in less than a minute, which is perfect. That was super precise. I just wanted to say that I think it's hilarious. The obvious connection between going from stand up comedy to being a lawyer for your father, I think there is really a direct line right there. But also the impact that our parents can have on us, that your dad just maybe even without realizing how important that one statement was going to be for you, that it changed your entire life trajectory, for him to say that if you want to be taken seriously and entertainment, this is the path. And that's what you did. Like "Okay, then let's do that".

Ester Steinberg
It's not necessarily right.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Right. Yes.

Ester Steinberg
And I don't know where his opinion starts and my life starts. I don't get it. I don't know what happened.

Sabrina Merage Naim
But when you were coming up in the ranks, were there female comedians that you really looked up to?

Ester Steinberg
Yes, there were. Sarah Silverman was huge at the time and I really admired her and I remember my dad being a big fan of hers. And Margaret Cho, and Ellen's stand up was so great. And I just remember being in awe of these women. I remember being in high school and being like, "I'm gonna do all that". Yeah, I was completely in awe but Sarah Silverman was just this edgy, sexy, female, Jewish comedian and I was so into that. What I didn't realize was that there could only be one Sarah Silverman. I think she created a wave of like 10,000 female comedian Sarah Silverman wannabes.

Kassia Binkowski
What was the gender dynamic in the industry at large, though, when you got started?

Ester Steinberg
I mean, it's all guys, all of them. Every single show. And I started in Tampa, Florida, which is where I grew up. And they have a rule at Size Splitters, which is basically, no women. And I did guest spots, and I pushed my way in because I was just a 17 year old. And I was like, I really want to do this. And I wrote, and I rehearsed and I had this great five minutes, and I did this five minutes. But then when it came to me later on in life trying to do headlining at this club that I kind of grew up in, they were like, absolutely not. And then my husband gets booked there, many, many years later down the line, and he was like, "Can my wife open for me?" Or my fiance at the time. And they were like, "no, no, no".

Sabrina Merage Naim
Still, all those years later, nothing changed.

Ester Steinberg
Yeah,

Sabrina Merage Naim
Honestly, it would have been infuriating a little bit either way. A little bit infuriating that it had to be your husband asking for his wife to open like that. I would have been pissed off. Right? And then they still said no.

Ester Steinberg
I know. I'm mad about it, but also I've just somehow kind of numbed myself to Tampa. I blamed it on the city I'm from, and then I created this hatred for Tampa, and yeah, it's not this woke city, and I've moved on. Goodbye Tampa. To me, part of Tampa feels like Saudi Arabia, like women are less than or second in the comedy world. And they don't even have a comedy world, I'm not gonna give them that. They have one club. And they don't allow women.

Sabrina Merage Naim
But you're not bitter.

Ester Steinberg
I'm over it. At this point, I'm like, "no".

Sabrina Merage Naim
But you've since performed in LA, and in New York, you live in New York right now. Are the gender dynamics so different in those places, than they were in Tampa?

Ester Steinberg
It is so different. In the comedy world, there's still obviously so many more guys, like I was just surrounded by them. There would be like 10 guys doing comedy, and then I'd be there. Like, a couple of women on an open mic and then 60 guys, so that's the way it was. And now I think it's evened out just a little bit. Yeah, and then in the city of New York, women are more in charge of things. It doesn't have that southern, Tampa feel.

Kassia Binkowski
Which matters. Yeah.

Ester Steinberg
I always want to like, "let's move on from my hometown". Let's not talk about Tampa.

Kassia Binkowski
So okay, you grew up in Tampa. You go to school in New York, you kind of cut your teeth and get your career started in LA. Is that right?

Ester Steinberg
Yeah. A little New York and a little LA. And by the way, theater school was just all gay men, just championing. Just felt very heard by gay men. Cuz that was my school. I was in theater school, and I was like, "Yes". And they were smart, and everyone was into theater. And then I would do this weird thing and go do stand up at night. And then yeah, I went to LA and I was like, "I'm gonna do it here". Oh, I had an incident at school.

Kassia Binkowski
Tell us everything.

Ester Steinberg
So I'm in acting school, which is all touchy feely. But it's all gay men, who cares? One of my teachers was trying to tell me how to do a sketch. We had one class of the three years that was even remotely... I was allowed to do comedy. They were like, you're not allowed to do comedy here. And then there was this one class that was like a sketch class and I was in a conservatory, three days a week, nine hours a day. That was for three years. So one of the classes in that conservatory was sketch. My heart is kind of going, because I don't talk about this. But in front of the whole class, I'm up there doing my funny thing. This is what I do. This is my specialty. Feeling really good about myself. And my teacher touches me, gropes my boob in front of everyone, and was like "why don't we do it this way?" And the sketch was touchy feely, with a female. I don't know what the joke was, but it was another female and me and we were like, pretending to make out. I don't know, it was a stupid sketch, I'm allowed to do whatever I want. And my teacher touches my boob in front of my whole class who we spend every second of the day with, and everyone gasped. And I gasped, and I felt really violated because this was a male teacher that had kind of a reputation of being skeezy. And I just kind of walked away numb and then everyone wanted to tell my administrator, the lady in charge. So then she heard about it and was like, "Can we talk?" And I was like, "Yeah, I was groped by a teacher, and my whole class watch. And he touched my boobs". 99% of the teachers are like, "Can I touch you?" And they'll adjust your alignment. That was that relationship with teachers. "Can I touch you? Okay, try standing up straight". And this was so different. And I complained, she kind of pushed it away, kind of brushed it off was like, "Yeah, I don't know..." She just made a weird excuse that that's kind of who he is. And I was like, "okay?" She's like, "do you want me to get them to write you a letter of apology?" And I'm like, "No, I don't want an apology". And then I just kind of tallied up how many credits I needed and left school, and didn't even walk on graduation. I just took a winter class and was like, "Okay, I have two humanities left. I'm done". I'm going to LA.

Sabrina Merage Naim
How much of you not wanting to go back was because you weren't being heard, and weren't being properly respected? And how much of it was because of the teacher?

Ester Steinberg
Oh, yeah, the whole situation. It was probably even. But I was really mad about the teacher. And I've just never really dealt with that. I just kind of tallied up how many hours I needed and left. I just kind of peaced. And I felt like no one cared about me.

Kassia Binkowski
And you're obviously not alone in that sentiment. And I think your experience is not so different from many women in the media and entertainment industry, as has become very clear in the past few years. And it's also just the start of the ways that sexism has reared its ugly head over the course of your career.

Ester Steinberg
Yeah. And then you get to LA and they have a statue of a casting couch on Hollywood Boulevard. And it said, this is how some people got here. Almost like saying, these women took a shortcut.

Sabrina Merage Naim
I think that it really speaks to the fact that women are brushed under the rug and not believed or just kind of pushed aside because it's so much more work to deal with the issue than it is to just say it was an isolated incident, and that it's not a larger problem. And it is pervasive. And it has happened throughout history. And the women are just kind of pushed aside.

Kassia Binkowski
So at this point, it feels like a lot has happened in your career. You've bounced coast to coast around the country at this point. Go to LA, start your career, and then you follow a boy to New York.

Ester Steinberg
Yes, yes. So I was three years in LA doing my own thing, doing a reality show, which was about five female comedians. And yeah, it was really just trying to get a name for myself. I also was coming up on, like, I'd hooked up with comedians, because I'm around them and I like funny guys. Once someone introduced me on stage, and they were like, "this comedian has slept with this guy, and this guy".

Sabrina Merage Naim
Ooh.

Kassia Binkowski
What?

Ester Steinberg
I had to perform comedy after that introduction, and I'm like, "Hi, guys. How's it going?" You know, you have to come up with these clap backs. And I'm like, 21 or 22, barely allowed to be in the building, but this is my dream. So I will keep going. I had a couple of comedians, when I was really young, working in Tampa, who tried to kiss me. And not in a hotel room, in the comedy club. A lot of comedians trying to kiss me in a comedy club. And it's also an environment where people are drinking, drugging, whatever it is they're doing. So it's kind of like "boohoo, go cry to HR".

Kassia Binkowski
Well, you're also in an impossible situation. It is your career to be the funny girl, right? To crack a joke about it, to get a get a rise from the crowd. The dynamic of having to be taken seriously about these incredibly serious offenses while still wearing this hat of humor, and being the funny girl, and building a career in comedy. I mean, it just feels like an impossible predicament.

Ester Steinberg
Yes. Also, I'm a serial monogamist. I love, love. I loved having boyfriends. Most of my relationships were good, some were bad, but I found that having a boyfriend in comedy was like a little protection. Like, "I'm not gonna mess with her because she's dating my friend". And it worked, it worked really well.

Sabrina Merage Naim
But the fact that you needed that kind of protection is maddening.

Ester Steinberg
Right. And then it's like, what do you wear on stage? I've been pulling my hair out for the past 12 years of stand up. Do I look cute? Do I look really frumpy? Should I wear a whole sweat suit? I don't want to look sexy, I don't want to look ugly. This is Hollywood. Everyone cares about what you look like. I never wanted to send someone the wrong message, but I really want to do their show.

Kassia Binkowski
How much do you feel past all of that in your career versus still in the thick of it? Because I make assumptions about... you look ahead to the Amy Poehlers, and the Ellen's, and at some point, they're desperately wanted for their performance. And they can afford to put up with less, I guess is the question, as opposed to being in this very early career, walking this line of needing and wanting opportunities and feeling a little bit more vulnerable to what other people are asking of you, and expecting of you. How much do you feel past it versus still in that?

Ester Steinberg
I do feel past it. And I think part of it is that I'm a mom, and I feel like I'm in a really good position. I have a great manager, I have a great agent, I run my own show, I do feel really much better. But at the same time, I have a story. Like Whitney Cummings, who is this super powerful lady who I admire for being such a boss. She did a comedy club, not recently, but there was a story that went around, that she was doing a comedy club and the owner smacked her ass. And she looked at him and was like, "don't do that, bad dog". But it's like, this is your headliner. This is the person who's selling tickets. This is the artist and you're going to...? There's something really exciting, I think, that men love to degrade an incredibly powerful, confident, funny woman. They just love it. And I'd like to think that I'm really past it all, but... I think I'm past it all because I was booking the Kibitz Room, which is such a dumpy bar, such low stakes. It's my show, I go there and I tell all my new jokes. And it's like a cozy blanket. It's Ester's space. So when I ask people to do the show, I'm doing them a big favor. I'm giving them stage time, which is what everyone in LA wants, it's really hard to get. And if I think you're funny, I'm gonna ask you to do my show. And I also have another female who books it and I'm like, if you find someone out there who's really funny, get them on the show. One day, some guy's doing the show, and afterwards, I didn't really know him. I don't him, but whatever. He does this show and afterwards, he started saying like, sexual passes at me. And I could definitely feel like something had changed in me because I looked at him and I go, "excuse me, I think you meant to say thank you for giving me a spot on your show". You don't have to ask me for my number, you don't have to be skeezy. You just say thank you and be professional. And I just totally tore him a new one in front of everyone. And I got loud. And everyone was like, "Okay...", so now I'm a bitch.

Kassia Binkowski
Right, right. So now you get a new label.

Ester Steinberg
I am a raging bitch. Yeah. And I don't care.

Sabrina Merage Naim
It sounds like maybe you're past it more because of the maturity and experience that you have amassed, and also the stage of your life that you're in, which is, you have are married, you are a mother. Not necessarily because the industry has changed so much. It's more, you know how to deal with it.

Ester Steinberg
Yeah, no, it's me.

Sabrina Merage Naim
So, you got married, you got pregnant, what happens to you around that time, like what happens to your career? Tell us how pregnancy changed anything for you professionally.

Ester Steinberg
I actually think being pregnant was the most liberating thing. So I again, like even a married person. You're very concerned with the audience because that's all comedy is. You're pleasing these strangers. 50 to 100 to 1,000 strangers. When I was trying to look sexy or cute at 21, I feel like some people were kind of turned off, like women and other things like that. Not easy to make them laugh. Pregnant though, everyone wanted to laugh at my jokes. I made fun of my big belly and I would self deprecate, and it was a blast, and I absolutely loved all the jokes that I told when I was pregnant. I loved making fun of my stretch marks, my cellulite, my varicose veins, I just put it all out there and got laughs and it was exhilarating. And then I did a one woman show where I was dancing, doing all these dances because I was imitating myself as a cheerleader in high school. So I like did a flashback in this one woman show. And I was like, kind of twerking while pregnant. And I was like, no one wants to see a funny twerking lady. But everyone wanted to see a funny twerking pregnant lady. So everything became funnier. Now that I'm talking about I'm like, "maybe I should get pregnant again".

Kassia Binkowski
Well, I was gonna say I mean, as a woman, and as a performer. It's such an isolated season of your life where all of this content is good for the these 10 months, these 9 months, unless you get pregnant again.

Ester Steinberg
So the plan was, this is like this reality of my life was, "okay, I've got all these funny jokes about being pregnant". Like one of my jokes. This is not even a good joke, but it was like, people asked me how pregnant sex is. I'll be honest, worst threesome ever. And I'm like, and I'm from Tampa so I've had some rough threesomes. And I would just like make silly jokes like that. It was inappropriate, but kind of funny because I was pregnant. So I tell my manager, "I've written a million new jokes, and I've got to do an album of some sort". We go to this company that did my last album, and they were like, "Okay, let's do it. Let's do an album". And then they were like, "actually, we're gonna do a special" and I'm like, "a pregnancy special. How exciting". I got a little nervous I was going to be compared to Amy Schumer, Ali Wong, because how dare two women, three women do a pregnancy special? What are what are what a copycat. And then COVID happened, so we ended up doing the special while I was six weeks postpartum, still breastfeeding.

Kassia Binkowski
Not the same thing, though. Not the same.

Ester Steinberg
Not the same thing. But so different. I said to myself, I was like, "you know, a lot of women have done pregnancy specials, but not a lot of women have done COVID pandemic, drive-in, post partum special".

Sabrina Merage Naim
Very niche.

Ester Steinberg
Yes. And then I actually wrote 20 more minutes on breastfeeding, on going into labor and trying to induce and trying to get the baby out, and I did that while six weeks postpartum in a global pandemic.

Sabrina Merage Naim
And you talk about Amy Schumer and Allie Wong's specials, and how you would be seen as a copycat, but I actually, I was thinking about it more as how it's really cracked open the opportunity for women to talk about being pregnant and being mothers on stage in front of an audience. And how important that is because, you know, Amy Schumer talked about how her pregnancy was extremely rough and how she was throwing up in the car on the way to the show. Ali Wong was talking about, "this is what my vagina looked like after I had a baby". And those were not topics that comedians were allowed to talk about. And now being able to kind of crack that open, I think is an opportunity for comedians, to bring those issues to the front to front and center and also have fun with it and be you know, silly about it.

Kassia Binkowski
And for women to eat it up, right. I mean, like, thank God, it's what we were all laughing at behind the scenes, you know, when it wasn't on a stage.

Ester Steinberg
Of my special, the goal is to have moms peeing their pants laughing, which shouldn't be hard because their sagittal muscles are weak. Every part of, I think comedy, other than, you know, the cancellable comedy. But comedy, I really do believe comes from like, some kind of humiliation, some kind of self deprecation or like an embarrassing story. I personally like really intimate personal stories. Some observational comedy is amazing, but it's not my style. So I tried to get really personal and really deep about every which way this was affecting me and my relationship and giving birth and yeah, I had a blast.

Kassia Binkowski
Well, and I can't think of a life experience more ripe for comedy than motherhood. Like if you can't laugh at the stuff that we're all dealing with on a daily basis with small children in our lives, and if you can't source good content from that, I mean, it's funny. And overwhelming and stressful and exhausting, but it's funny. In what ways did motherhood now, and you're what? A little bit less than a year in, is that right?

Ester Steinberg
Yeah, yeah. I'm like how long? It shouldn't be too hard after, he's like, almost 10 months.

Kassia Binkowski
How has that shaped your voice, shifted your perspective, affected your career?

Ester Steinberg
Well, I wish that I was going up every night, but we're in a global pandemic. But I am doing zoom shows, I am doing a lot of writing on my own. I really feel like just as it's the next chapter of my life, it's the next chapter of my comedy, and I really feel good about coming out of like "dating is hard". The other day, I was yelling at people when I was doing a show. It was a lot of people talking about dating and stuff. It was whatever. I got up and I was like, "dating's hard. Yeah, dating's hard". Like, I'm gonna unload all my baggage. You know, tell me how hard is it to eat dinner? How hard is it to go out to drinks? Okay. And then I just went into, like giving birth when they were announcing no birthing partners, and I'm like, "who's gonna take my picture?" I just love writing jokes and doing comedy about the whole experience. It's truly next level. And also, I do feel eyes and ears from young people and old people. Like it's something I feel like, I can relate to a lot of people with, and I love yelling at young girls and I'm like, "don't do it, this is your future!" And just being as silly as I can with like that young, naive, cute girl. Like, I'm just not there and I love being like a grouchy mom.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Absolutely.

Ester Steinberg
And I watch the muppets now, and I'm like,"that's me. I'm Oscar". I used to be Elmo, but I'm fully Oscar now. And it's delicious. Sometimes I'm the Cookie Monster. My references are absurd.

Kassia Binkowski
Yeah. Welcome to motherhood.

Ester Steinberg
Because as mature as I am, yeah, I'm also so juvenile. What am I doing? I'm talking about pee, and poop, and Sesame Street. Yes, I'm so mature now. I'm not talking about fancy art museums, though.

Sabrina Merage Naim
And you in the past year have been able to put a lot of that effort towards your podcast, Stand Up Mom where you are... To me, it's kind of a stream of consciousness of your personal experiences, and then interviewing other comedian women who are also going through similar things. And it was so funny when I was listening to a couple of the different episodes and hearing things like your experience with when your son pooped in his playpen, and it got everywhere.

Kassia Binkowski
Check that box.

Sabrina Merage Naim
And I'm like, "yep, yep, I've been there". Like when you're a mom, and you have your kid's poop underneath your nail bed, it doesn't even faze you anymore. Right? Doesn't matter.

Ester Steinberg
Absolutely. And then you get a call from your friend who can't figure out which leggings to buy. And you're like, "tell me more about your problems".

Sabrina Merage Naim
Yeah, this is not a problem. Yeah, but also I really appreciate that you are having conversations with women who are having vastly different experiences as mothers. Like you're talking about, you know, one woman, her milk didn't come in. And that's a really painful thing. And then another woman is like engorged breasts and too much milk and can't sleep and masitis and all of this stuff. And the funny thing is, throughout those conversations, you and your guests are like, "I didn't know, nobody told me" and it's like, actually, we tried to tell you, you didn't listen.

Ester Steinberg
It all started like, you know, around late pregnancy, I'm quarantined and trying to bark orders at my husband to like cook things, but teaching him how to cook from the couch. "Now add olive oil", and he's like shoving it up in the pandemic world. And then I was like, I need to listen to podcasts and get to know what I'm about to experience. So I started listening to a couple of podcasts that are so incredibly boring and stale and giving me so much anxiety. It's important information, but it's like, how many times can I listen to people talking about SIDS without having a panic attack, at like nine months pregnant in a global pandemic? And I was like, "is there anything light or funny?" And then there was a couple of, kinda "we're moms and we're alcoholics, great". I don't really relate to that either. I need real information, but I need it delivered to me with so much sarcasm and jokes and self deprecation, because that's how I like to hear things. And then I was like, I got to start my own. And I started to interview people. And I realized, what an easy way into a juicy story, when I just asked someone to take me on their birthing journey, or like, "did you always want kids?" is one question. And the next is, "how did it go down?" Some people, you know one of my friends Gina said she got pregnant while she was on birth control. And then she had this horrible experience with a doctor and I'm like, "tell me his name". And, gosh, everything in between. And I wanted to talk about postpartum and I wanted to talk about everything. So we really, I just enjoy it. And I say it's limited podcast. I'm going to interview every single comedian who is a mom, put it on tape. How did it go down and how was breastfeeding and how was everything? And then we'll end it by asking if you'd let your kid do stand up, and usually everyone's like, "I do not want that for my child".

Kassia Binkowski
Of course.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Breaking Glass is a production of Evoke Media. Evoke is a nonprofit organization that exists in order to elevate the people and stories that are working to make the world a more unified and equitable place. Learn more at weareevokemedia.com.