Until Samantha Bee’s new TBS show and Sara Schaefer’s new IFC show manage to claw their way out of development, aside from The Grace Helbig Show on E!—which we totally forgot about, too—hosting late-night talk shows remains a male concern. And while men are cool and all, with 157 million women to the 151.8 million men living in the U.S., in order for true equality to be achieved, at least a couple of male late-night hosts will have to be purged in the coming gender wars. (Sorry, Jimmy Fallon. You had a good run.)
Stephen Colbert gets it, and in a new essay published in Glamour magazine he makes a case as to why he’s one of the good ones. “It’s not my place to mansplain to you about the manstitutionalized manvantages built into Americman manciety. That would make me look like a real manhole,” Colbert writes, proposing that women “tell the men of the world that you’re trying to start a campfire. While we’re all arguing with one another about proper kindling placement and whether using lighter fluid is cheating, women can just quietly start getting stuff done.”
Saying he falls “somewhere [on the gender spectrum] between Channing Tatum and Winnie the Pooh,” Colbert promises that his show will work hard to represent women’s voices, and not just by having his female staff members ghostwrite him essays about how great women are:
Point is, I’m here for you, and that means I’m going to do my best to create a Late Show that not only appeals to women but also celebrates their voices. These days TV would have you believe that being a woman means sensually eating yogurt, looking for ways to feel confident on heavy days, and hunting for houses. But I’m going to make a show that truly respects women, because I know that there’s more than one way to be one.
Colbert’s—or his female staff members’—essay can be read in full on the Glamour website.