Nell Scovell writes about the lack of female writers on David Letterman's TV shows. There's no real excuse for it but I think the imbalance was a smidgen better than most of these articles suggest. This particular one would make you think Letterman had Merrill Markoe, Nell Scovell and no one else of their gender. There were a few others. I know my wonderful friend Tracy Abbott was a writer on Dave's NBC show and if she isn't a woman, she did a great job fooling everyone, including the doctor who delivered her baby.
Like I said, no real excuse. One that Scovell's piece doesn't really get into but which I've heard is that some shows don't hire women because women don't submit sample material to them or agents don't submit their female clients. There's probably some truth to that but it's part of a Catch-22 situation: The show has never hired women so people think, "Well, there's no chance at a job there so why try?" And that's not an excuse because those who do the hiring oughta do whatever they can to break that roadblock. Even if you didn't create the obstacle, it's wrong to have it in place and it's foolish to not be open to a great new writer simply because she ain't a guy.
Also, these articles should note that Letterman is not the only offender in this area. Years ago at a Paley Center I attended, Bill Maher announced flatly that he would probably never have a woman writer on his show because he never found one who could write his kind of comedy well enough. I'm not sure he hasn't located one or two but his current staff seems to be all male. And the archetype late-night program, The Tonight Show, hasn't done too well in this area either…
Steve Allen never employed a woman writer and neither did Jack Paar. In fairness, it should be noted that those shows had pretty small writing staffs and fairly brief runs, and there just might not have have been anyone around if they had actively tried to find a lady joke writer. There weren't that many Sally Rogerses in those days.
But the number of women writers hired by Dave Letterman's hero Johnny Carson in thirty years on-air was zero. Not a one. Jay Leno hired the first ones and I'm not sure but I think the first-ever female writer in the long history of The Tonight Show was the aforementioned Tracy Abbott. I also seem to recall that after she was hired, someone at NBC Publicity asked her if she'd consider changing her first name…because, you know, what's the point of having a woman writer if people can't tell from the credits that she's a she?