Your new show, ‘‘Full Frontal,’’ is currently the only late-night TV program hosted by a woman. Will you be heating your office to normal temperatures? No. There’s nothing that can be done about how men control the temperatures in the office. The women are all freezing. We’re all dying. We’re all wearing hats.  On ‘‘The Daily Show,’’ you used to file a lot of the field reports. Some of those interviews were really uncomfortable. Women are socialized not to cause that sort of discomfort. Was it difficult? I felt it in a physical way. I can almost sense that moment when I need to press the accelerator pedal and just go for it. I feel it, really, in my swamp.  Whoa. Haven’t heard that euphemism before. I had a teacher in theater school, and she called her pelvic region her swamp. She meant it as your inner essence. It wasn’t meant to be the condition of your nether parts.  Or the need for Summer’s Eve. Yeah. I probably shouldn’t use that image. At all. I should not have said that out loud.  There’s this weird tic I noticed in some of the coverage of your show. Most articles say something like: Yes, she’s a feminist and the only woman on late-night, but her whole show isn’t going to be about that. Just so you know: Boys can watch it, too. It’s going to be O.K.  People don’t generally say that about a man’s show. Part of me would love to see you do the opposite: Make a show that’s just completely feminine, a giant vulva on television. You haven’t seen my set yet!  Is it true that you set up a rape-threat hotline for men who get angry about the show? Yeah, we did. I say that, and I’m chuckling, but it’s so horrible.  You’ve said that if you go on Facebook and read the comments on Jimmy Kimmel’s page, they’re all superhateful, but when the comments are directed toward women, there’s a ‘‘tone change.’’ Yeah. If I read comments, oh, boy, I would never get out of bed. I mean, I would never leave the house. But now that I’m 46, the comments are way less sexual. People think I’m more of an awful harpy, rather than something that somebody would want to commit violence on.  Which do you think men find more threatening: a funny woman or an angry woman? I think angry women are so easy to dismiss as crazy or shrill. It’s harder to dismiss a funny woman.  A funny woman is often an angry woman, but she’s just — Harder to ignore.  You’re an only child. Do you think that had an effect on your sense of humor? You grow up expected to converse with adults on their level. I can still remember as a kid, I was so competitive at Trivial Pursuit. I just wanted to beat the adults in my family so badly. One time, my dad asked: ‘‘Who is the Prince of Wales?’’ And I was like: ‘‘I got this. Moby Dick.’’ Everyone laughed. I can still remember it. That’s how stinging it was to me, to not fully understand adulthood.  ‘‘Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’’ premieres on TBS on Feb. 8. Age: 46 Occupation: Comedian Hometown: Toronto Her Five Favorite Female TV Stars: 1. Lynda Carter 2. Catherine O’Hara 3. Carol Burnett 4. Betty White 5. Jan Hooks  But you have three kids, so it seems you decided that’s not a future you wanted for them. Are you really thoughtful about treating your kids like kids? Well, not that thoughtful about it! We’re not trying to protect their precious innocence. We don’t watch kids’ movies anymore. We’re tired; we just can’t do it.  Does your 10-year-old daughter call herself a feminist? I think she would, but we don’t talk about it that much. But we do talk about women’s experiences in other countries. I was in Jordan at this great falafel restaurant, and I was not allowed to sit in a certain section. I told Piper about it, and she was aghast. I was like: There’s so much more to tell you about the world you’re living in. I ate the falafel anyway. They were awesome.  Interview has been condensed and edited.  Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of The New York Times Magazine delivered to your inbox every week.  A version of this article appears in print on February 14, 2016, on page MM58 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Samantha Bee Likes to Make Things Uncomfortable. Today's Paper|Subscribe
The comedian on being the only female late-night talk-show host, navigating the male dominion of office temperatures and not protecting her kids’ innocence.