It can be hard out there for a female comedian.

“I hate to say it but I think that as a lady, you do have to prove yourself a little bit more,” Katherine Ryan — the star of the Netflix stand-up special Katherine Ryan: In Trouble — tells PEOPLE.

But Ryan says she’s been able to succeed because she “was born with the confidence of an 89-year-old man and he doesn’t care what you think of him or what he says,” which is a personality trait she honed while working as a waitress at Hooters to pay for college.

“When I started open mic-ing, I worked at the Hooters next door to the comedy club,” she says. “I didn’t want to be a comedian at that time but I just thought stand-up would be fun, like a little exercise. So after my shift ended sometimes I would go next door to the comedy club — still in the uniform but with a hoodie — and get on stage for just five minutes. I was awful.”

“I think that working at Hooter’s influenced my voice as a comedian, as a woman. I was young there learning about my place in the world, learning about feminism,” she says.

“The most attractive thing is not to be just soft and quiet and pretty decoration. That kind of gets boring quickly. The girls who had the most fun at Hooters and were funny and had the most friends were the ones who had some sense of humor about them — some wit — and who, like, cooperated with other women,” she says. “All of those things have really helped me in my career now.”

Katherine Ryan: In Trouble is streaming now on Netflix.