Girls star/creator Lena Dunham is heralded as the embodiment of a feminist for the new generation. The “Gloria Steinem” of today. She’s worked with and is an ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood, very vocal on reproductive rights and the “war on women,” a survivor of an alleged sexual assault, and recently awarded for her work with an organization that helps victims of sexual trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Comedian Rosie O’Donnell even drew comparisons on Dunham becoming the next Steinem: "I really feel as though, you know, she is the embodiment of…like, she’s like the child of Gloria Steinem, right, or the grandchild even…”
(No, Rosie. Dunham would’ve been aborted if Steinem were her “mother,” given Steinem’s previous abortion(s) and ultra-pro-abortion stance.)
O’Donnell continued, “I look at her and it makes me tear up to see her advocacy for women’s rights and women’s issues and representing women on television in a realistic, contemporary way.”
Given all the feminist hype for Dunham, it’s what she recently said that is making her sound like vintage Tipper Gore than a modern-day Steinem.
Dunham was speaking at Variety’s Power of Women 2015 lunch when she made the following comments attacking music (most notably hip-hop and rap), which she says, “celebrates the exploiters and hides the exploited.” She continued:
“I always tell people — particularly angry internet commentators — that there is no such thing as a perfect feminist, and I am no exception. Some phrases that have left my lips in the past: ‘What a ho,’ ‘Hey, hooker,’ ‘sup, slut.’ Some songs I kept listening to: 'Big Pimpin',' 'It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp'; age 13, my best friend and me in her bedroom screaming along to Sublime, 'Annie’s 12 years old and two more she’ll be a whore.'"
Dunham then tried to make a connection between this language and how it undermines women, as if to “silence and shame” them:
“Here’s the tricky thing about language — it belies how powerful it is. When I used those words, I felt subversive, naughty, strong. I did not realize how these songs and words were not ways for me to reclaim my feminine power — in fact, they’ve silenced and shamed the women they purported to describe and reduce them to objects and even worse, punch lines.”
Yeah, right. She’s essentially calling out Jay-Z for his demonization of women on his 2000 hit “Big Pimpin.” One wouldn’t think she had an issue with Jay-Z and his lyrics back in 2013 when she tweeted the following:
"I wish I could tell you why my mom is with Jay-Z right now."
and
"I hope Jay-Z really gets what's special about my mother"
So….at least 22 months ago Dunham was cool with Jay-Z and his lyrics because he was busting out rhymes to his song "Picasso Baby" for a performance art piece at the New York Pace Gallery…which Dunham’s mother was involved with. Sort of hypocritical if you ask me, but I guess it works only when it’s convenient.
Speaking at Variety’s Power of Women lunch is just the latest in a string of media opportunities to help repair her shattered image from when she falsely accused a (Republican) man of raping her during her time at Oberlin College. After that story crashed and burned, combined with her own personal accounts of sexually abusing her sister multiple times, Dunham cancelled her book tour and remained quiet for a good few weeks.
Since then, she’s written an essay on being a "bona fide weirdo" for Seventeen magazine, discussed her work for Planned Parenthood in Elle, taking on mental health and body image by posting a “workout” selfie and a “no thigh-gap” selfie, and trying her hand at “humor” by writing a piece in The New Yorker where she compared her Jewish boyfriend to a dog. All in an effort to help her image.
It’s amazing that Dunham was even honored as a “sexual assault” role model to begin with, since she has simply done nothing to help the cause. To this day, she hasn’t gone to the police to press charges against the alleged rapist, though she thoroughly describes him and admits he has hurt others in her book, Not That Kind of Girl. Despite her role as a campus sexual assault activist, Dunham is all talk and no action. To be lauded as a hero or role model, one must do something to deserve that title.
