If you're into stand-up, it's easy. I'm sure he'd say the same.

Comics are a lot like musicians; lots of unpopular greats, and lots of popular not-greats who are literally incapable of writing their own stuff. (Not that you have to write everything yourself, but if you're a professional, you should at least have the ability.)

But also, in both cases, the market dictates what it wants from women performers more than it does men, who have more freedom to be niche with their subject matter/style. Bo Burnham and Jonathan Coulton do nerd guitar. The Sklar Brothers are sports and film geeks. Odd combination. Patton is one of the biggest names out there, and 3/4 of his material is Star Wars jokes. Ralphie May and that Fluffy guy make a living off fat jokes. Stanhope isn't niche, but all he does is get drunk and go on stage. They could all be bigger if they told Dane Cook jokes, but they don't want to, and thankfully don't have to.

For women, unless you're a talent like Ellen or Maria or Sarah (all of whom I, despite my y-chromosome, would appraise as more naturally gifted than any of the men above, especially Dane and the fat guys) you can't be your weirdo self and have that kind of success where if people have Netflix, they know your name. There's no market. If you do period jokes, congrats, you've used up your one niche. No more niche for you.

I'm not a "blame society" guy. I'm really not. I think you care about airbrushing as much as you allow yourself to care about airbrushing. But the above is conspicuous. And in music the ratio of Beyonce "Irreplaceable" songs to Emili Sande "Next to Me" songs, by women, is 1000:1, and by men, is 1:1000. Something's up.

Fwiw, my guess is overreliance on market research. In neither industry do those conspicuous trends hold constant the further you move from the tippy top. I took five paragraphs to support the point that it makes perfect sense that your bf knows where all the funny bitches at. SOCIETYYYYYYYYYYYYY.