The most powerful female and male relationships—sister and brother, mother and son, wife and husband—are, at their core, founded and sustained by empowering one another.
The saying usually goes: Behind every great man is a great woman, or vice versa. That’s just not how it goes. Partnerships are about being beside one another, not behind.
On International Women’s Day, in association with UN Women, Esquire Middle East is spotlighting relationships—familial, marital, or otherwise—that are based on mutual support, allowing women in leadership positions to thrive and achieve a more equal future.
American Mina Liccione and Emirati Ali Al Sayed, stand-up comedians by trade, are the twin pillars of the UAE’s comedy scene.
In addition to their stand up specials that have aired across the world, in 2008, the two founded Dubomedy, a school for comedy and urban arts that acts as a conduit to bring cultures together through laughter.
Read our full conversation with the comic duo below:
The most fulfilling relationships are built on mutual support. It’s not ‘behind every great man or woman there is a great partner’, it’s beside. You’ve been beside each other, personally and professionally, for ten years. What does mutual support mean to you?
Ali: In the last 10 years, we’ve learned that mutual support doesn’t mean constant collaboration, it means supporting each other as individuals. We relaxed a lot. At first, everything had to be together. Now we pay attention to our individual craft a lot more. We’re a lot more comfortable saying, ‘I need to work on this. You need to work on that.’
Mina: In the beginning, Dubomedy was our baby. We really needed each other’s input, and we spent so much time together. Now, we can do our own projects, and then at night, talk about them with lots of excitement, as well.
What are the ways in which you support each other’s work? How do you bounce ideas off each other?
Mina: I’ve become better with this. Before we had kids, I would wake him up in the middle of the night with great jokes or great ideas for a sketch in my sleep. I would write them down and of course, accidentally end up waking him up.
Ali: Be honest, it wasn’t accidental! She would tell me a joke in the middle of the night, 3 AM, and I’ll say, ‘that’s hilarious!’ She would say, ‘But you’re not laughing. It’s not funny?’ I’m like, ‘I can’t laugh. I’m sleeping!’
“Stand-up comedy is a lonely, lonely artform. To have him in my corner is amazing to me, and sometimes I can’t believe I have that.”
Mina: But now we got a lot better with that. Now our sleep is sacred, and our time with our children is sacred. We create a firm break between one and the other. Then in the morning, almost every joke, every great idea, I am so excited to share with him, because I trust him. And I know his sense of humor and that he is going to be really honest with me.
Stand-up comedy is a lonely, lonely artform. To have him in my corner is amazing to me, and sometimes I can’t believe I have that. When something funny happens during the day, when something important happens during the day, when something very embarrassing happens, I literally can’t wait to talk to him about it. That’s comedy-love right there.
Ali, what kind of support do you need? Mina, do you have any particular ways of doing so?
Mina: He does a lot of crowd work, which requires improvising. Afterwards, he won’t remember any of it.
Ali: She’ll tell me, ‘that’s a great bit. That’s a great joke’ and I won’t even remember saying it.
Mina: I will take notes for him because I know he’s not going to. I’m like, ‘you need to use this as a bit’. I’m his biggest fan. I’m not going to lie. Whether we’re married or not, he makes me laugh all the time. The truth is, if I didn’t think he was funny, it wouldn’t work. You can’t fake the funk.
How do you guys support each other after the bad shows?
Ali: Pfft, we don’t have bad shows!
“Men and women are told that you shouldn’t and can’t do so many different things. What we do around here is figure out a way that works for us.”
Mina: We keep it real. Neither one of us is delusional. We know each other, so I’ll say, ‘let’s talk about what you think didn’t go good, and let’s talk about it and figure out how to make it better and then let’s celebrate.’
Have you two had to overcome the stigmas of traditional gender roles?
Ali: I was raised by very strong women. I’ve three sisters, and my mom. I always had good, strong women around me. I married the loudest woman I ever met. In the world of comedy, that’s a compliment.
Men and women are told that you shouldn’t and can’t do so many different things. What we do around here is figure out a way that works for us.
It’s a lot like it is with our twins—I was concerned that one would overpower the other, but they each walk beside one another, and have different needs and follow different paths. That’s why it works. We do that together as well.
Mina, what were the most important relationships in your life that empowered you to be yourself?
Mina: Growing up, I was the only child until 10. And my dad’s a boxing promoter, the quintessential Italian New Yorker. If anything, he taught me how to box, and defend myself, in more ways than one.
He would always say, ‘don’t let anybody use you. I used to be a guy once. I know what they’re thinking. If someone messes with you, bada-bing-bada-boom’. He was very open that I deserved better, and I should respect myself. He encouraged me to communicate too, even the hard stuff.
He was really supportive of self-respect, self-love, and knowing your worth. My dad still to this day is always supportive and that helped tremendously. And my mom, she has a personality to match his. I was definitely blessed. We both got lucky that we’ve got good parents and I don’t take that granted for sure.
And now you get to be great parents. That should be easy, right?
Mina: Ah yeah, no problem!
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