Should Lena Dunham really be the voice of this new generation of feminists?
In my gentle opinion, the answer is no.
Dunham rose to fame in 2012 with her TV series Girls, for which Dunham writes and acts as one of the main characters. She also released a book in 2014, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned”. Both were total hits, and won multiple awards. However, Dunham came under fire as soon as the book hit shelves, first being called out by right-wing online publication TruthRevolt for reporting her own tendencies as a young child to explore sexuality through her sister who is six years younger than Lena. She admits to grooming her sister, much like a pedophile would use a child: “Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl, I was trying,” she wrote. She bribed her sister with candies for long kisses, and inspected her vagina when she was seven years old; the younger sister was one year old at the time.
Dunham also described this as just something she did at the time, something that was totally within a reasonable range of action for her. This normalization is so incredibly damaging to survivors of sexual assault, as well as the public’s image of abusers. Survivors of childhood assault face enough trauma as is, trying to distinguish memory from fact, establishing the true depth of the trauma, often suffering in silence for years, having repressed the memory. And because of people like Dunham who faced no reprimand or correction for her actions, it’s seen as ok. Dunham apologized for the statements later, but not her actions. She and her sister defended the event. Psychologists have taken both sides: some say this action is normal for children at that age, who are just learning about bodies and sexuality and intimacy. Others say it’s concerning behavior for a child not to know certain boundaries and respect other’s privacy. Not to mention, the sister was one year old at the time of the incident. There was absolutely no chance she would be able to stop Lena’s actions herself. Dunham even writes, that as she opened her sister’s vagina, her sister did not resist. Well no shit… she couldn’t say no, and she didn’t know it was wrong.
Now, I’m not calling Lena Dunham a pedophile, a child molester, or anything of the kind. But think of this: if a male writer had done that to his younger sibling, how would people have reacted? If a male celebrity written about it so glibly, would he not be blacklisted from Hollywood? Dunham took advantage of the love people felt for her. She took advantage of the stereotype of women as innocent of sexual assault and abuse, further perpetuating the idea that women cannot be manipulative abusers.
So let’s now stop and analyze. I’m not saying that all role models have to be perfect; however, we have to be careful when choosing the people we want to follow and listen to. Dunham has done some good things for women. She’s quirky and offbeat and women relate to that. She’s honest and unapologetic for who she is, and that’s awesome. We all want to have that kind of confidence.
AND YET.
At the 2016 Met Gala, Ms. Dunham caused quite a stir. She arrived in a J. Crew tux with her signature glasses, and classy minimal makeup. Yas girl yas. And she was seated next to Odell Beckham Jr., well-known football star. Nbd right? Wrong. According to an interview between Dunham and Amy Schumer, their interaction was as follows: OBJ looked at Dunham and “determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’ It wasn’t mean—he just seemed confused. The vibe was very much like, ‘Do I want to fuck it? Is it wearing a…yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cell phone…It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, ‘This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.'”
\Well ok. First of all, why on earth should OBJ have to interact with her? Dunham makes no mention of trying to talk to him at all; she put words in his mouth and made ignorant assumptions for him. She immediately assumed he wanted to have sex with her which is problematic and heteronormative in itself. But why does she feel the need to make this pity party for herself? Why was she so offended that this athlete, with whom she has never had a conversation, wasn’t supposedly interested in f*cking her, much less talking to her? And she admits she’s insecure; join the club Lena. Maybe if she stopped assuming that every man exists just to have sex with her then she would stop being so disappointed.
And again, all of this was her own creation. It’s like being offended because the construction workers on the street don’t catcall you. It’s not a great message to put out into the world, and it’s in extremely poor taste. With these comments Dunham unintentionally perpetuated the stereotype of men- especially black men- as perverted, one-track-minded creatures who think of nothing but their own interests and sex. And in her apology that was released a few days after, she didn’t acknowledge it at all. Considering all that’s happening between Black and White people in the US right now, it’s fairly easy to see why this would be upsetting.