My response to the open letter:
First, we’re not girls. We’re not children. We are young women. We feed ourselves, pay our bills, drive, work, have sex, don’t have sex, study, party, read, and form our own thoughts and opinions, maybe not in that order.
Secondly, Carrie Bradshaw was a grown woman in her late thirties and forties. She wasn’t a college grad on her own for the first time writing a sex column for the New York Star. Nix the facetious attitude. I’m sure your Mac book pro is sick of it.
You’re writing like a child not getting to meet Cinderella at Disney World. Surprise! Every kid doesn’t get the princess dinner. Don’t be so naïve. Don’t tell everyone not to go to Disney.
I once had a friend who turned down a summer internship because she was going to have to alphabetize files on occasion. I thought she was an idiot. You have to pay your dues. Rarely do luxurious jobs just fall in your lap, and neither do amazing lofts or perfect relationships.
Work
Pay
Take risks
Put yourself out there
Those are the steps to becoming successful. Pipe dreams are labels people subscribe to when they aren’t willing to work for their goals.
Third, Carrie didn’t write to become a successful writer. She wrote because she loved it. Don’t we all want to get paid for doing what we love?
Fourth, as open as Carrie was about her sex life I think she would appreciate other younger women opening up about theirs. It clears up the misconceptions, the myths, the lies. The things we tell ourselves are the norm, knowing they’re not. The things we criticize ourselves for not being able to do. The things we live with because we don’t realize they aren’t okay. If more young women are open about their sex lives, perhaps we won’t be so quick to shun young women that have sex. If more young women are open about their sex lives, perhaps we won’t be so quick to shun young women that don’t have sex.
What’s more, at the end of the day if you can only be successful because there’s no competition… are you really successful?
Use spell check by all means. Write about things besides men and sex and relationships. Have role models besides Carrie Bradshaw. If you move to New York, expect to live in a shoe box apartment. Space is limited in the city and prices are outrageous. Don’t expect to land your own column the minute you hail a taxi. Expect to take the subway and fact check instead. Make friends like Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha because you deserve them and they are out there. Then when you’re forty; you’ve worked your ass off, have a career and loft apartment: feel free not to wear a bra.
You don’t have to be Carrie Bradshaw. You can be someone else. “Someone else successful and the city.” You can be yourself and take inspiration from someone else, whatever you want to do. Still, to get where you want to go, you have to rack up the time, the experience and the refrences. If you want to be a writer and WordPress is your only outlet, don’t let another WordPress user tell you not to write. Practice makes perfect, or close enough.
xoxo,
-E
Related articles
- Carrie-ing the Torch: Deep Down, We’re All Still A Little Bit Bradshaw (observer.com)
- Carrie Bradshaw: Feminist, Chauvinist, and… Indian Captive in Paris? (theatlantic.com)
- Guide App Names Leslie Bradshaw Chief Operating Officer (prweb.com)
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