why i write like a girl
“Because I am a girl, whether you like it or not. Because the whole of human experience is to say the least overwhelming; to divide it in half, to write about female experiences in what might be a female way, is closer to achievable. Is realistic? Is less arrogant. Because I may be a narcissist forever and ever amen but I am not arrogant enough to think that I am impartial, omnipotent, the voice of God, the New York Times. Because writing like a guy has given us Monocle; think about that. Because, despite Monocle, no one seems to complain about anybody writing like a guy. Because Gertrude Stein. Because Virginia Woolf. Because Daphne du Maurier. Because Simone de Beauvoir. Because Anne Sexton. Because bell hooks. Because Joan Didion. Because we don’t know for anything like sure if there is anything bigger than our selves. Because certainly I am not those things. Certainly I can’t say. Can only speak for me and for people like me, people that tend, after all, to be female. Can only write what I think, feel; can’t know. Can only write ‘I.’ Refuse to think of that as a failing.”
words by Sarah Nicole Prickett
