This article was taken from the December 2014 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
You might know comedy writer Megan Amram's Twitter feed (sample: "Gusfess wgether im wesrjng glovbes ornot"), but the 27-year-old from Portland, Oregon, is also a rising star -- she has written for Comedy Central's Kroll Show and has a staff gig at Parks and Recreation. Her first book Science... for Her! is out now. It won't teach you much, but it will make you laugh. It also delivers a legitimate critique of sexism -- with frequent detours into the absurd.
WIRED: Explain your book's premise.
Megan Amram: I wrote a science textbook for women that looks like Cosmopolitan because women's brains are too small to understand science and their hands are too weak to turn the covers of a textbook.
OK, but really. I think it's more effective to show your anger through comedic satire than writing an angry tirade on Facebook.
It's really a conversation about feminism and the media. There are maths textbooks for women and articles online that, completely seriously, ask things like: "How big is the volume of your purse?" The thought that this is going to bring more women into science is a little faulty to me.
Some of the articles sound real -- like "Hot reproductive sex tips." When I started writing the book, I bought a high-school science textbook and some women's magazines. When you read them all at once you see the patterns. A Beautiful Mind music was playing in my head as I was cutting out sidebars on "How to please your man."
Do you have a favourite piece? I really liked "The Period! Ick!
Table," and "Sad Libs," which is a Mad Libs-style suicide note.
Why write a book at all? First of all, books may not exist in two years.
What if my book is the last book... ever? There's also something about doing the aesthetic joke of making it look like this other type of book -- you can't make that kind of joke on TV.
You tweet jokes daily and write episodes ofParks and Recreation. And now a book. That's prolific. I have, like, 30 more jokes in me. If you're a woman, you're born with all of your jokes inside of you and then you're done! It's joke menopause.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
