my wife's hilarious.
my wife has made me laugh harder than almost any other human being.. she's not a good stand up, she's never even tried to do comedy, but she's hilarious just naturally. in conversation, she has the self-control of a one-liner writer without the need for notes or repetition. she holds out the right words, lays back in conversation and lets a din build between the other participants, and hammers tags once a rhythm is built, and does all the other “mechanical” things that a truly great comic talent does.
i don't mention that to say "there are funny women because i know one woman that i personally think is funny." i don't think anyone thinks that "women can't be funny." i think the usual thought, even in the most closed-minded he-man woman-hater is "women aren't great standups," which also isn’t true, but the statistical difference between 1 group being the minority having such a vast majority of the great comic mouths/output, and 1 group being the majority and being relegated to almost novelty status in the arena of comedy.
men are more often the "great" standups because men are horrible to look at and unless they're lucky enough to be gay, they devote every moment from age 8 until they're dead to getting women to touch their penises with their hands or mouths or thighs or whatever it is the man is after: a feat that can usually only be accomplished by making a woman laugh. men are forced by nature and polite society to be funny.
in skilled hands, funny has ended slavery, funny shames rapists, funny shines sunlight on all evil and the focuses the magnifying glass of collective opinion onto it until it burns away leaving the charred remains of human ego behind... but funny is also incredibly selfish and individual-focused, which brings me to the next point...
women are more evolved, and funny is only a focus for a person that is damaged in some really fundamental way. funny is not feeding the homeless or clothing the clothesless, it's just funny. in the enlightened human: comedy is just a vestigial tail, and funny is the way that tail once wagged. we won't see that enlightenment in this lifetime, and personally i'm glad for it, because i kind of like giggling at dick and twat jokes. that said; if i ever meet someone from the future, it'll be the hardest thing ever to explain to them what comedy is and why we still do it.