Katherine Ryan on Feminism, Achievement, Criticism and Fearlessness.

‘Especially in this country, I think you required me. You didn't comprehend it but you required me, to lift some of your own shame.” The performer, the forty-two-year-old Canadian comic who has lived in the UK for close to 20 years, brought along her brand new fourth child. She takes off her breast pumps so they avoid making an annoying sound. The primary observation you see is the incredible ability of this woman, who can radiate motherly affection while articulating logical sentences in complete phrases, and never get distracted.

The next aspect you observe is what she’s famous for – a authentic, unapologetic audacity, a rejection of affectation and contradiction. When she burst onto the UK comedy scene in 2008, her provocation was that she was exceptionally beautiful and made no attempt not to know it. “Aiming for glamorous or pretty was seen as catering to male approval,” she states of the that period, “which was the reverse of what a comic would do. It was a fashion to be humble. If you appeared in a glamorous outfit with your little push-up bra and heels, like, ‘I think I’m gorgeous,’ that would be seen as really unappealing, but I did it because that’s what I wanted.”

Then there was her comedy, which she summarises casually: “Women, especially, craved someone to come along and be like: ‘Hey, that’s OK. You can be a advocate for equality and have a cosmetic surgery and have been a bit of a party-goer for a while. You can be imperfect as a parent, as a spouse and as a picker of men. You can be someone who is afraid of men, but is confident enough to mock them; you don’t have to be deferential to them the all the time.’”

‘If you went on stage in your little push-up bra and heels, that would be seen as really unappealing’

The underlying theme to that is an insistence on what’s true: if you have your child with you, you most likely have your feeding equipment; if you have the facial structure of a youth, you’ve most likely received treatments; if you want to reduce, well, there are drugs for that. “I’m not on any yet, but I’ll consider them when I’ve stopped nursing,” she says. It touches on the heart of how feminism is conceived, which it strikes me has stayed the same in the past 50 years: freedom means appearing beautiful but without ever thinking about it; being constantly sought after, but without pursuing the male gaze; having an solid sense of self which perish the thought you would ever surgically enhance; and in addition to all that, women, especially, are expected to never think about money but nevertheless prosper under the pressure of modern economic conditions. All of which is sustained by the majority of us being dishonest, most of the time.

“For a considerable period people went: ‘What? She just talks about things?’ But I’m not trying to be challenging all the time. My personal stories, behaviors and mistakes, they live in this space between confidence and embarrassment. It took place, I share it, and maybe relief comes out of the punchlines. I love revealing confessions; I want people to confide in me their confessions. I want to know errors people have made. I don’t know why I’m so keen for it, but I feel it like a link.”

Ryan spent her childhood in Sarnia, Ontario, a place that was not especially prosperous or cosmopolitan and had a active community theater arts scene. Her dad owned an industrial company, her mother was in IT, and they anticipated a lot of her because she was bright, a high achiever. She wanted to escape from the age of about seven. “It was the kind of town where people are very happy to live close to their parents and remain there for a lifetime and have each other’s children. When I go back now, all these kids look really recognizable to me, because I spent my childhood with both their parents.” But she later reunited with her own high school sweetheart? She traveled back to Sarnia, caught up with an old flame, who she saw as a teenager, and now – six years later – they have three children together, plus Violet, now 16, who Ryan had brought up until then as a solo mom. “Right,” says Ryan. “Sometimes I think there’s an alternate reality where I didn't make that, and it’s still just Violet and me, stylish, cosmopolitan, flexible. But we can’t fully escape where we originated, it seems.”

‘We cannot completely leave behind where we started’

She did escape for a bit, aged 18, and moved to Toronto, which she adored. These were the period working there, which has been another source of discussion, not just that she worked – and liked the job – in a establishment (except this is a inaccuracy: “You would be fired for being topless; you’re not allowed to remove your top”), but also for a bit in one of her routines where she talked about giving a manager a blowjob in return for being allowed to go home early. It breached so many red lines – what even was that? Manipulation? Sex work? Unethical action? Betrayal (towards whoever it was who had to stay late so she could leave early)? Whatever it was, you definitely weren’t supposed to joke about it.

Ryan was surprised that her anecdote provoked controversy – she was fond of the guy! She also wanted to go home early. But it exposed something broader: a strategic absolutism around sex, a sense that the cost of the #MeToo movement was demonstrative chastity. “I’ve always found this fascinating, in debates about sex, permission and exploitation, the people who misinterpret the subtlety of it. Therefore if this is abuse, why isn’t that abuse?” She references the comparison of certain statements to lyrics in popular music. “They said: ‘Well, how’s that dissimilar?’ I thought: ‘How is it comparable?’”

She would not have relocated to London in 2008 had it not been for her romantic interest. “Everyone said: ‘Don’t go to London, they have rats there.’ And I found it difficult, because I was instantly broke.”

‘I felt confident I had jokes’

She got a job in retail, was diagnosed a chronic illness, which can sometimes make it difficult to get pregnant, and at 23, chose to try to have a baby. “When you’re first told you have something – I was quite ill at the time – you go to the most negative outcome. My rationale with my boyfriend was, we’ve had so many ups and downs, if we haven't separated by now, we never will. Now I see how extended life is, and how many things can transform. But at 23, I was unaware.” She managed to get pregnant and had Violet.

The next bit sounds as nerve-wracking as a classic comedy film. While on time off, she would care for Violet in the day and try to break into comedy in the evening, taking her daughter with her. She was aware from her sales job that she had no problem persuading others, and she had belief in her quickfire wit from her time at Hooters; more than that, she says plainly, “I was confident I had jokes.” The whole scene was riddled with sexism – she won a major comedy award in 2008, just over a year after she’d started performing, a prize that was created in the context of a persistent debate about whether women could be funny