The Carrie Bradshaw Effect

Co-written with Hannah Seligson

The 57 million dollar opening weekend for Sex and the City, the film, was just the beginning. Now, it appears, armies of young women across the country are shelling out another ten dollars twice, three, or even four times to see their hero prance about in couture wedding gowns, redecorate her upper east side apartment, and obsessobsessobsess about a less-than-impressive guy again. We hate to be the Debbie downers at the Carrie Bradshaw coup d'etat, but as two twenty-something New York writers , we feel it is our duty to make a little public service announcement: Carrie Bradshaw is killing your future career.

We know, we know, men have been writing about their lives for centuries and it's been called great literature. So why are we picking a bone with a fictional character that's made writer's block sexy? Because we can't turn a page, web or paper, without reading about a young woman over-sharing details about her love life.

And frankly, it's creating a scary Carrie Bradshaw ghetto for young women writers, a ghetto that places a high premium on appearances and how fast you can blog about your latest sexual escapades.

Carrie's spawn are everywhere, yet serious women writers remain terribly under-represented in most of the field. Ruth Davis Konigsberg documented on her site, womentk.com, that male writers dominate the "thought leader" magazines - The Atlantic, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair -- by a margin of three to one. Random House's Modern Library imprint list of the 100 best novels and non-fiction books lists eight women on the fiction list and 12 on the non-fiction list. Time magazines list does slightly better on its list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present with 12 women making the cut.

We're feeling the effects personally. Courtney pitches a story on immigrant women; the editors at a major magazine want a graphic expose on sex trafficking, hopefully first person. Hannah was told by a very prominent TV agent that if she wrote more about her love life, she'd have a better on-air career; never mind that her latest book is on workplace politics (and not the kind that involve tongue-kissing in the copy room).

A senior editor at a major publishing house said her desk is teeming with sexy proposals from young women anxious to become the next Carrie. "It a sad time to be a young woman writer," she says. With memoir the go-to form and sex the go-to filler, a young woman who wants to write hard-hitting sociological analysis can get in line behind Susan Faludi's five million other unfulfilled fans. If Courtney had a dollar for every time a book editor said, "This is such an important topic, but we just don't see a market for it," she could afford her own Fendi baguette.

While women today don't write under male names, as the Bronte sisters and George Eliot did, we wonder whether posing on Gawker in your underwear, a homage, perhaps, to Carrie's famous almost nude bus shot, really constitutes progress. And further, 8,000-word diaristic pieces in The New York Times Magazine that arc around details of your love life that even your best friends would have to force themselves to care about ("Exposed" by Emily Gould, May 25, 2008) and the constant recycling of storylines that involve finding a rich husband don't paint the picture of contemporary womanhood we were hoping for. The Carrie model is not going to get women writers recognized -- it's going to keep them in the stronghold of a lineage that doesn't produce many Pulitzers.

Here's the other insidious thing that the glam of the Gabbana often obscures. The Carrie-ing of this generation of writers is sending a retro message to media powerbrokers: if you give them a byline, even if you also ask them to literally or metaphorically expose themselves, they will come. The Carrie Bradshaw Effect keeps young writers like us -- women who want to write about politics, economics, and ethics -- constantly fighting editors' appeals that we stick to the Style section or focus on so-called "women's issues. To be sure, there is a Carrie Bradshaw doppelganger out there right now, whose true calling is penning her pining for elusive love. For her, Carrie's flitting life feels like just the right size. But for the rest of us young women writers, who want to investigate corporate malfeasance, report on music and culture, or opine about the future of our country, the shoe just doesn't fit.

Comments

[larmarch5]

Ruts are ruts. S&TC is to women what WALL-e is to geeks. Both are fun movies, but neither is a breath of fresh air. There is a lack of interesting points of view and surprising outcomes in "blockbusters" of all kinds. I don't go to "chick" or "p-rick" flicks. Foreign films and literature are way ahead of the US in this regard. There is a morbid dearth of interesting female characters. What a bummer it was to watch Gwyneth Paltrow wasted in Iron Man. I'd love to hear the jokes she's told about getting paid to be a geek's fantasy inflatable. I think I'll go watch "Fried Green Tomatoes" with "A Fish Called Wanda" as a chaser.

[ASFerris]

great post. thanks.

[Halsey]

I watched SATC on re-run...and enjoyed it as escapist unreality. but if I look at these women, I truly find them vacuous bubbleheads and don't envy their lives a bit. Of course I'd love to fall in love and marry a trillionnaire...but come on...first..I'd like Darfur straightened out and Dr. Congo (women for women.org)...fully funded..and some day..unnecessary.

but..it does come down to "choice". these women you mention..all have the choice..go for the bucks..or write their hearts and souls...taking a chance on putting food on their table.

When women claim total responsibl­ity...then we'll see more permanent change in our chances.

[OhComeOnNow]

Yes, let's glamourize all that's wrong...

[emcd]

Am I the only one out there who thinks we have regressed in this country largely BECAUSE of shows like this? And women have bought into this willingly; that women have value and power in direct relationship to how big their boobs are and how much skin they show.

I think I liked it better when men were afraid of saying sexist things and staring at womens boobs. Now they think they have license to say whatever they want because we put it out there--the skin, the sex life, etc--so it's fair game for them to talk about it. Then it's only one step further to go back to old ways of marginalizing women.

[NoSillyName]

Agreed. The regression is depressing.

[longislandlol]

It's OK with me that when-- and only when my grandaughter finishes a four year college degree- she can have the city apartment experience, and secure a good job, etc... albeit I'm told to afford a decent apt. you'll need a room-mate

[kae]

your editors seek out the Carrie Bradshaws because consumers crave it - americans are very entertained -(when's 24 coming back? torture's so cool!) - powerful people have perfected distraction - spend your energy seeking media reform and use your skills to shed some light on the job the FCC's not doing

[Jjc2006]

Here's the thing: if this were not such a blatant sexist society we could have Carrie Bradshaws and Maya Angelous. You see, MEN get the benefit of living in a world that understands that they can be serious thinkers, serious writers, serious at anything and STILL ENJOY watching a bunch of grown men pounding the crap out of each other for no other reason than to PLAY.

Women, all of us, SHOULD be allowed to read and watch the Carrie Bradshaws of the world without feeling guilty. Hell we should be able to watch soap operas AND BE ABLE TO READ the classics, write and debate the politics of war and peace and still go out to dinner with our friends, wearing jewelry, dressing to kill, and sipping wine and doing our version of "locker room" talk about the boys.
Why should women only be allowed to be either silly or serious....why can't we, like our brothers, have room in our lives for it all?

[ProfessorDuh]

Women ARE "allowed" to read and watch the Carrie Bradshaws of the world without feeling guilty. Maybe if they find themselves feeling guilty about it, there's a good reason.

[NoSillyName]

Women are "allowed" to do all of those things you've mentioned.

(Sadly, not in all cultures.)

[ProfessorDuh]

The Carrie Bradshaws are merely the most obviously self-absorbed people in a society consumed, destabilized and wrecked by petty, materialistic self-absorption. Who cares about American torture when there's a sale at the mall? They'll be busy painting their nails up right until the moment when the deluge washes them away.

[joebiz]

Terrific post.

[RPLinNYC]

GREAT post! that is all.

[mredder4]

What kind of American woman are you, to not want the clothes and shoes and apartment and the rich husband and the token children and all the other STUFF that fills in for things like happiness and fulfillment in this country these days? Doesn't material accumulation satisfy all your needs like Sex and the City tells you it should?

[NoSillyName]

Can I get a "HELL NO"?