NO FUN GABY DUNN

Jun. 2, 2011 at 1:34pm with 98 notes

The Carrot

I am not a stupid person, but often I worry that I’m missing something important. While I can (and have) read books about quantum mechanics and understood them, this exchange happened the other day at a luncheon at my office.

Me: (pointing to a vegetable tray) Oh, what are those?

Confused co-worker: What are what?

Me: Those orange things. They’re super long and skinny and the top part is short and green. What vegetable is that?

Co-worker: (slowly) Are you talking about carrots?

Me: (realizing) Oh. Uh. I was joking. I know what carrots are.

Co-worker walks away, shaking her head.

Obviously, I’ve seen a carrot before. Obviously, I know what a carrot is. But I’d never seen ones that looked like that — they were cut differently and the top parts were shortened. I’d failed to recognize a carrot in front of my face.

So, what is this a metaphor for?

Lately, I’ve been trying to submit my writing to the ever-increasing number of popular women’s blogs. You know the types. A bunch of cool girls write about the Internet or their lives making sure to reference, I don’t know, bands from the late ’80s and specific episodes of ‘My So Called Life’ and Christina Hendricks from ‘Mad Men.’ They are blogs where every post is quirky or sort of apathetic or about wine or condemning rape culture, and there’s like, an ever-clicking chorus of Internet yes-women who all seem to like the same things and hate the same things and it’s all real cozy for everyone. And look, that’s totally great that women feel they can express themselves online. It’s a miracle and a haven. We’ve come a long way and rah, rah, hear us type furiously!!

Most of the time, reading those blogs, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in. Why? They’re geared towards me, aren’t they? I’m a 20-something lady, living and working in a big city. I’ve had men treat me poorly. I’m queer (in so much as I’ve dated women). I’m handy with the old Internet machine (a popular blog, a popular Twitter feed). So what gives? Why can’t I connect with these websites or the people who write them?

I really WANT to like them, you know? It’s like sitting in the back of the cafeteria watching all the popular kids discuss abortion and body image and Stevie Nicks and not feeling like you relate to any of their topics. As a female writer, I feel like it’s my obligation as a woman to support the work of other women. I recognize that these sites are doing a lot of good for the people that can connect to them and I respect that. But I feel sad — really often — for not being able to connect to them myself.

I also, as a writer, understand the value of the platform. But everything I pitch falls flat.

So then I start to think, maybe I’m just not seeing the carrot. (Stay with me.)

It’s like the zeitgeist of these women’s blogs is the carrot, right? And it’s something that everyone else (other women) can recognize and it should be innately familiar to me as a human who has lived (as a woman who has lived). But for some reason, I’m taking in the different shape and the different cropping and I’m failing to see the carrot as a carrot. I’m trying to make sense of the individual aspects when as a human being, I should just KNOW what a carrot looks like in all forms.

So right. As a woman, should I KNOW what these female-geared blogs want? Shouldn’t the things I write and want to read about then innately become “right” for a female blog? I am female and I don’t like fashion and I don’t own any records and I don’t think men are as stupid as Yo-plait commercials make them seem. Am I not angry about the right things? Am I not reading the right feminist texts? DO I NOT LISTEN TO ENOUGH ADELE?

There’s a style of writing, too, across all of these blogs that’s becoming indistinguishable from each other. Every time a new one launches, I’m just like, ‘Oh! They do that sort of dreamy, specifically nostalgic and referential, sisterhood type thing too! How can I write like that? It’s so popular right now!’ And this may sound sarcastic, but it’s sarcasm born out of truth. I’m not bitter at all about these writers’ success. They are good writers. On the contrary, I want in to the clubhouse and my key is buried in a pile of etsy.com receipts.

I want to write for you, lady blogs! I want to write like a woman who resonates with other women. The point of all these blogs is, ostensibly, to create an inclusive culture between women, and for a lot of women, that’s exactly what they do. But is it really inclusion when it’s only inclusive to women who can relate? Am I flawed because I just, just CAN’T?

I don’t know how to change how I write to be a carrot that I feel obligated to be contributing to and I don’t know how to get the attention I need and want for my writing because it doesn’t fit into what women write like or about nowadays and it’s all very frustrating.

It makes me feel like this:

The donkey is me. Only I’m wearing a blindfold and so I can’t see the carrot pinata of brilliant, resonating pieces that spark Internet choruses of “YOU GO, GIRL” right in front of my face.

And sure, maybe what I’m pitching just isn’t right for those specific blogs. Whining won’t make me understand what women want to read about or be able to time the ebb and flow of the female Internet tides like Abed’s carefully constructed menstrual chart from ‘Community.’ It seems like you either get it or you don’t.

I just wish, you know, being a woman could give me some insight.