Building a Bigger Table

Fran Ayala-Rock on Feminist Comedy, Rage, and Community

Photo by Andy Rock

Fran Ayala-Rock is the founder of Bitches in Stitches, an all femme and them stand-up comedy collective that began in Hong Kong and has since expanded internationally. In this conversation with The Parlor, she reflects on building community in male-dominated spaces, rejecting the “good girl” script, and why rage can be a powerful force for self-definition.

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When Fran Ayala-Rock started Bitches in Stitches, she wasn’t trying to launch an international comedy collective. She just wanted one night where women comics could perform together instead of being treated as the token female on male-dominated lineups.

Five years later, the all femme and them stand-up collective spans multiple cities and nearly one hundred members. Alongside her work in PR and communications, Ayala-Rock has built a space where comedians can develop their voices without asking permission from the traditional comedy gatekeepers.

In this conversation with The Parlor, she reflects on building community instead of competing for scraps, the power of female rage, and why the answer was never begging for a seat at someone else’s table.

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The Parlor: Fran, for people meeting you for the first time, tell us a little about yourself and about Bitches in Stitches.

Fran Ayala-Rock: I’m the founder of Bitches in Stitches, an all femme and them stand-up comedy group. We were founded in Hong Kong in 2021 and, five years later, we’ve expanded to other cities. We’re now in Hong Kong, Manila, Manchester, and London. We started with six members, and now we have around 90.

Outside of comedy, I also work in PR and communications. I’ve worked with major brands, startups, and female founders, and I speak on panels and forums as well. So yes — booked and busy.

The Parlor: You’re a founder, a comic, and someone who has worked in traditionally male-centered spaces. Did building something of your own come out of frustration with those spaces?

Fran Ayala-Rock: Absolutely. And let me start with a joke, because that’s how I cope.

For our Women’s Month show in London, I’m opening by asking everyone to “take a moment of silence to appreciate straight men. They’ve been the topic of many polarized discussions in mainstream media, and I think we should give them some credit. Because without straight men, I’d actually have to research facts instead of hearing them man-splain constantly.”

But seriously, there is truth underneath the joke. I found research from a McKinsey and LeanIn study showing that women are often evaluated based on past performance, while men are evaluated based on potential. Men are given promotions and pay rises for what they might do. Women are expected to prove what they’ve already done.

So even when people talk about wanting a level playing field, we’re not even being judged by the same criteria.

The Parlor: That double standard shapes so much. Women are often taught to overperform just to receive a fraction of the recognition.

Fran Ayala-Rock: Exactly. And that overachieving work culture was glamorized for a long time. I’m a millennial — I read Sophia Amoruso's Girlboss. I bought into that mentality. And yes, I got promotions. But I also worked myself sick.

That’s the trap. Productivity can become a mask. People see your output and ignore the fact that you are not mentally well. It becomes a very slippery slope.

The Parlor: You’ve worked in journalism, communications, and corporate spaces. How did that path unfold for you?

Fran Ayala-Rock: I started as a journalist and worked in journalism for six years. I began in fashion journalism, then ended up covering the homicide beat in Los Angeles for six months. That work affected me deeply. I interviewed victims’ families, sat through trials — it was traumatic, honestly.

After that, I moved to Hong Kong and couldn’t find journalism jobs because employers preferred bilingual Chinese speakers. Someone suggested communications instead, and when I saw the salary difference, I thought: yes, I will absolutely write about products and profit margins instead of murder.

So I moved into corporate communications at a very traditional multinational company. My team was fairly progressive and mostly female-led, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still dealing with straight men taking credit for my work. I eventually moved into agency-side PR and marketing, which I enjoyed much more. Now I freelance and work with a mix of clients, though I especially like working with female founders.

The Parlor: Let’s talk about Bitches in Stitches. How did it begin?

Fran Ayala-Rock: It was never supposed to become what it is now. I started doing comedy in 2018 after the end of a seven-year relationship. I was newly single, absolutely feral, and my friends basically told me I needed a hobby. So I started telling my stories at open mics.

When I began getting paid to do comedy, I noticed there were maybe seven or eight women in the English-speaking comedy scene, but we were never booked together. There would be one woman per lineup — the token female comedian — surrounded by a bunch of men whose material often had very different politics and energy from ours.

If the majority of jokes you hear in a night are misogynistic or just wildly disconnected from your experience, it doesn’t exactly create the ideal environment for a female comic to thrive. So I thought: I just want one night where the women are on stage together.

I called the other women in comedy, booked a venue, and we did one show. It sold out in six hours. The venue invited us back the next month, and then the next, and suddenly we had a residency. That was the moment I realized this wasn’t just about putting on a gig — it was about building a space, nurturing talent, and creating community.

The Parlor: There’s something powerful in deciding not to beg for entry into a space that was never made for you.

Fran Ayala-Rock: Exactly. Why would I kill myself begging for a seat at a table that was never meant to include me? Why would I compete with other women for scraps? We can just build a bigger table.

That’s really the heart of it. I’m not interested in taking someone else’s seat anymore. I’d rather create something new — something better, something more expansive, something built around equity and connection.

The Parlor: Your collective is also explicitly intersectional.

Fran Ayala-Rock: It has to be. Intersectionality is essential. This isn’t just about women in some narrow sense. It’s about all the people who have been excluded, flattened, tokenized, or sidelined. And I think there’s a misconception that inclusion means taking something away from somebody else.

It doesn’t. My success doesn’t diminish yours. Building a new table doesn’t destroy the old one. It just creates more room.

The Parlor: You’ve spoken about community as an alternative to competition. But building community is not always neat or easy. What have you learned the hard way?

Fran Ayala-Rock: That community sounds beautiful on Pinterest, but it is much harder in real life.

Not everyone who enters a community is meant to grow with it. People change. Their expectations change. Their intentions aren’t always the same as yours. Some people join because they genuinely want to help build something. Some join because they want to benefit from it.

The only thing you can really do as a founder is be crystal clear about your values and your mission. You can’t control everyone’s expectations, but you can be clear about what the space is for. And then you keep choosing to show up. Sometimes that means hard decisions. Sometimes it means letting things fall apart so you can rebuild.

The Parlor: You also talked about how community can expand through collaboration rather than scarcity.

Fran Ayala-Rock: Yes, and that’s actually how Bitches in Stitches became global.

I founded the group in Hong Kong, then later restarted it in the Philippines. In October 2024, I got a Google alert for “Bitches in Stitches,” and it was not my group. It was another feminist all-female comedy night in Manchester with the exact same name.

So I found Natalia Schwartz, who had started it there, and instead of treating it like competition, we connected. We fangirled in each other’s DMs, laughed about the coincidence, and decided to build together instead of against each other.

That’s the point. Lift as you climb. That’s how you smash a ceiling.

The Parlor: What has it been like navigating comedy as a woman in a male-dominated field?

Fran Ayala-Rock: The main thing I’ve learned is that I’m not interested in changing their space anymore. I’m interested in creating ours.

With Bitches in Stitches, we decided we were not going to ask for permission. We weren’t going to try to reform a system that benefits from our exclusion. We would build the type of room we wanted to walk into.

So our shows are designed to feel welcoming and safe. We don’t use laughter to alienate. We want people to come to a comedy show — even if they’ve never been to one before — and feel comfortable, even if they’re sitting in the front row. We want the room to feel like your identity is not going to be the punchline.

That changes everything.

The Parlor: Comedy audiences can also bring their own bias. There’s still a stereotype that women aren’t funny.

Fran Ayala-Rock: Yes, and that bias shapes everything. If an audience comes in already doubting you, then you’re spending part of your set just trying to convince them you belong there. And if you have to earn their trust before you can even get to the joke, then of course your rhythm is affected.

I once watched a TEDx talk by the non-binary drag king comic Jodie Mitchell, who performs as John Travolva. They talked about how differently audiences received them depending on how they were presenting. That really stayed with me. Female-presenting comics often have to work harder simply because the audience has already made assumptions.

And yes, heckling is real. People will absolutely say things to women on stage that they do not say to male comedians.

The Parlor: Even with all your experience, do you still get nervous before performing?

Fran Ayala-Rock: Every single time. I have stage fright before every show. Every time. It only disappears once I step onstage.

But when it works — when a room full of strangers is laughing together, when the whole place is vibrating with that energy — there is honestly no better feeling in the world.

The Parlor: A lot of what you do feels deeply tied to becoming unapologetically yourself. Has that always come naturally?

Fran Ayala-Rock: Not at all. It was a journey.

I give zero fucks now, but I used to give every single one. I had a difficult childhood. My parents divorced when I was young. I was raised by a single mother who worked constantly. I grew up with pressure, loneliness, and a real hunger for validation.

When you grow up feeling unseen, you can start to build your entire sense of self around external approval. I definitely did that. I wanted attention. I wanted affection. I wanted to feel like a star.

And yes, external validation feels amazing. I perform comedy. I love applause. But I had to learn that it cannot be the only thing sustaining you.

The Parlor: Was there a breaking point?

Fran Ayala-Rock: Yes. A few, really.

I’m a survivor of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and domestic abuse. I moved to Hong Kong in part to get away from a dangerous relationship in Los Angeles. I left with a suitcase and started over.

Then I entered professional spaces and encountered more power imbalances, more dismissal, more minimization. It all compounded. Eventually I hit a point where I thought: if I keep letting this system make me small, there will be nothing left of me.

So I stopped. I became more assertive. I started asking for what I wanted. I got comfortable making people uncomfortable. I got okay with being disliked.

That was the shift.

The Parlor: You’ve spoken very powerfully about rage. What role has anger played in becoming yourself?

Fran Ayala-Rock: A huge one.

Women are absolutely demonized for anger. If a man is angry, he’s having a bad day. If a woman is angry, she’s an angry person. Her anger becomes her entire identity.

But rage is powerful. And for a long time, I was taught to fear mine, bury it, or feel ashamed of it. Eventually I realized that anger was telling me something. These things that happened to me were not okay. My anger was valid. It deserved to be honored.

That was life-changing.

At the same time, I also had to learn that not everyone deserves access to that part of me. It’s important to honor your emotions, but it’s also important to protect them.

The Parlor: You also mentioned something striking about what a therapist taught you about anger.

Fran Ayala-Rock: Yes — that anger doesn’t really exist in a vacuum. It’s usually signaling another unmet need underneath it.

That changed the way I think about it. Instead of being told to calm down, I learned to pause and ask: what need is not being met here? What boundary has been crossed? What hurt is underneath this?

That’s much more useful than pretending anger is irrational.

The Parlor: For people who are trying to find their safe people — their real community — what would you tell them?

Fran Ayala-Rock: Stop giving a fuck what the boys think.

Honestly, the advice I would give my younger self is: stop torturing yourself trying to become someone other people will approve of. It’s not about being liked. It’s about liking yourself enough to show up as you are.

When you show up authentically, you give people the chance to actually know you. That’s how you find your tribe.

And then: boundaries. Communication. Empathy. You have to be honest about what you can give, what you need, and when to say no. That’s part of protecting yourself and part of sustaining community.

The Parlor: Final question; what keeps you going?

Fran Ayala-Rock: Honestly? The people. The work. The fact that this thing that started as one show turned into a real international community.

Also, therapy helps.

Things have not stopped pissing me off — but now I have an outlet, I have a community, and I have a therapist. That combination is doing wonders.