Girls

Lena Dunham's White Feminism Is Officially Cancelled

It's been a long time coming.
Sade Andria Zabala
November 21, 2017
“Anyone who calls themselves a feminist after learning about the movement from, of all people, Lena Dunham, is not to be trusted.”
— Melissa Fabello, 5 Ways Taylor Swift Exemplifies White Feminism – And Why That's a Problem
Tagged: White Feminism, Pop Culture
“I can’t imagine a passionate affair with a native man... Yellowish Fever: I know I said I could never imagine a Japanese affair, but I’ve changed my mind. Kazu, the art handler hanging my mom’s show, is gorgeous like the strong, sexy, dreadlocked Mongol in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
— Lena Dunham, Sayonara
Tagged: White Feminism, racist
“I had this dumb, Western idea. Like, I’m going to go to India and it’s gonna be so transcendent that I’m not gonna be afraid of death anymore, and I’m going to lay down so many of my Western anxieties and embrace a new kind of knowingness and bring it back to the U.S.”
— Lena Dunham, The Aerogram
Tagged: Americans, Cultural Appropriation
“She found herself sympathizing more with the stray dogs she saw than the poverty-stricken people.”
— Brian Hiatt, Lena Dunham
Tagged: Girls, lena dunham, lena dunham rolling stone cover, girls rolling stone cover, racist
“I’m not super thin, but I’m thin, for like, Detroit.”
— Lena Dunham, ‘Girls’ Star Tells Howard Stern
Tagged: Fatphobia, Fat shaming, body shaming
“(On outing her sister to their parents) ‘What I didn’t say in the book is how it messed up our relationship for like two years,’ Dunham said, sipping a smoothie as industrial-grade Vitamix blenders roared in the background.

‘It was not two days,’ Dunham said. ‘It was a month.’

‘It was about a week,’ Grace said. ‘It was about two weeks to one week.’

‘You came out to me, like, a week into shooting ‘Tiny Furniture,’ ’ — Dunham’s 2010 feature film — ‘and I didn’t tell Mom and Dad for like a week after we wrapped.’

Grace rolled her eyes. ‘Without getting into specifics,’ she said, ‘most of our fights have revolved around my feeling like Lena took her approach to her own personal life and made my personal life her property.

Basically, it’s like I can’t keep any of my own secrets,’ Dunham said. ‘And I consider Grace to be an extension of me, and therefore I couldn’t handle the fact that she’s a very private person with her own value system and her own aesthetic and that we do different things.”
— Meghan Daum, Lena Dunham Is Not Done Confessing
“I haven't had an abortion... I wanted to make it really clear to her that as much as I was going out and fighting for other women's options, I myself had never had an abortion. Even I, the woman who cares as much as anybody about a woman's right to choose, felt it was important that people know I was unblemished in this department. Now I can say that I still haven't had an abortion, but I wish I had.”
— Lena Dunham, Women Of The Hour
Tagged: Abortion
“I used to be really into Rihanna, that pop star, and then it's like—again, I don't want to ever throw stones from my glass house—but I follow her on Instagram and I just think about how many little girls beyond what I could even comprehend are obsessed with Rihanna. Like, you know, she left Barbados, she's had this amazing career, she's won a Grammy…She's talented. And then she gets back together with Chris Brown and posts a million pictures of them smoking marijuana together on a bed. And it cracks my heart in half in a way that makes me feel like I'm 95 years old.”
— Lena Dunham, Piling on Rihanna Accomplishes Nothing
Tagged: Domestic Abuse, Abusive Relationships
“An uncool thought to have: 'is that guy walking in the dark behind me a rapist? Never mind, he's Asian.'”
— Lena Dunham, Lena Dunham faces backlash on Twitter after 'racist' tweet resurfaces
Tagged: Lena, Dunham, faces, backlash, Twitter, racist, Tweet, resurfaces, racist
“Dunham’s discrediting of Perrineau is an example of how women of color who have made accusations of sexual assault are often contradicted and never believed (Lupita Nyong’o for example, was the only one of 79 actress that Harvey Weinstein contradicted when she came forward with her story of sexual misconduct).”
— Paula Rogo, Lena Dunham's Response To Actress Aurora Perrineau's Rape Claim Is A Perfect Example Of White Feminism At Play
Tagged: WOC, White Feminism, Rape, Rape Culture, Sexual Assault, Harvey Weinstein
“Lena Dunham be like: women coming forward about sexual assault are so important but only if the assaulter is not someone i know personally.”
— Luisa Haynes
Tagged: lena dunham, White Feminism, Bourgeois, Sexual Assault
“Lena Dunham doesn't believe her white male friend raped her black female costar? Color me shocked. Almost like white feminism is really only about uplifting and supporting white women as they pursue their ultimate capitalistic goals of sharing the role with men as oppressors.”
— Kat Blaque
Tagged: White Feminism, Neoliberalism, Capitalism, lena dunham, Rape
“People make mistakes, but people who really want to change grow from it and grow up. Lena Dunham doesn't want to grow.”
— Princess Weekes, Lena Dunham Reminds Everyone Why Women of Color Don’t Trust Her
Tagged: lena dunham, Mistakes Are Portals of Discovery, Growing Up, Learn From Your Mistakes
“Dunham’s defense of Miller looked like the worst kind of hypocrisy. She was apparently willing to publicly state that it’s terrible when people refuse to believe that their friends and colleagues might be capable of hurting women, but if it’s her friend and colleague in question, then everyone should just be cool.”
— Constance Grady, Lena Dunham accused a woman of lying about her rape. It fits her controversial past.
Tagged: lena dunham, Hypocrisy, Sexual Harassment
“She cannot have our words if she cannot respect us.”
— zinziclemmons
Tagged: lena dunham, White Feminism
“The problem with "Girls" is that while the show reaches  —  and succeeds, in many ways  —  to show female characters that are not caricatures, it feels alienating, a party of four engineered to appeal to a very specific subset of the television viewing audience, when the show has the potential to be so much bigger than that. And that is a huge fucking disappointment... "Girls" is good for girls. But which girls?”
— Jenna Wortham, Where(My) Girls At?
Tagged: lena dunham, Hollywood, inclusiveness, Girls (Tv Series)
“Not only were the four main characters white, but so were nearly all of the show’s supporting characters. When people of color did emerge in the background, they were treated as flat stereotypes. And Dunham’s writers’ room was mostly white, meaning that she largely wasn’t hiring people who did have the ability to bring that much-sought “specificity” of experience to the table.”
— Constance Grady, Lena Dunham accused a woman of lying about her rape. It fits her controversial past.
Tagged: Girls (Tv Series), Hollywood, Diversity, stereotypes
“She appeared to be congratulating herself on being progressive enough to critique millennial racism, while simultaneously refusing to do the work necessary to incorporate people of color into her fictional world.”
— Constance Grady, Lena Dunham accused a woman of lying about her rape. It fits her controversial past.
Tagged: Hypocrisy, Fake Woke, Neoliberalism, White Feminism, Diversity
“Dunham kicked off 2013 by reportedly telling Rolling Stone that she held more sympathy for India’s “stray dogs” than she did for the “poverty-stricken people.” That same year, she joked that she was “thin for Detroit,” a comment with racist undertones that did not go unnoticed by residents of the Motor City. And earlier this fall, Dunham announced she would be touring for Not That Kind of Girl with a band of “special weirdos who [she] found on the Internet” who would provide warm-up acts without receiving compensation, despite the fact that she made $6 million in 2013. After a stern media backlash, Dunham decided to pay her opening acts and, predictably, all was forgiven.”
— Samantha Allen, Will White Feminists Finally Dump Lena Dunham?
“Mainstream feminism is riddled with classism, racism, and sexual orientation discrimination... Feminists in positions of power in ‘the movement’ aren’t ready to confront their own racism and white privilege, so it’s uncomfortable for them to discuss Dunham’s.””
— Deva Cats Baril, Will White Feminists Finally Dump Lena Dunham?
Tagged: feminism, Social Heirarchy, classism, White Feminism, lena dunham, racism
“The way Lena Dunham talks about black men is peak white entitlement... Dunham is entitled to her own perspective and story, but not to the minds and thoughts of the black men around her.”
— Zeba Blay, The Way Lena Dunham Talks About Black Men Is Peak White Entitlement
Tagged: Casual Racism, stereotypes, white privilege
“She and I ran in the same circles in college. I avoided those people [Dunham and her friends] like the plague because of their well-known racism. I’d call their strain ‘hipster racism,’ which typically uses sarcasm as cover, and in the end, it looks a lot like gaslighting — ‘It’s just a joke. Why are you overreacting?’ is a common response to these kinds of statements.”
— zinziclemmons
Tagged: Casual Racism, lena dunham, Gaslighting
“Her feminism is less a philosophy to which she is committed than a brand from which she is willing to profit when it is convenient to her and abandon when it is not. o one’s feminism is ever going to be completely pure — but Dunham’s keeps revealing more and more flaws... A consequence of a more deeply entrenched worldview.”
— Constance Grady, Lena Dunham accused a woman of lying about her rape. It fits her controversial past.
Tagged: lena dunham, White Feminism
“The truth is Lena Dunham’s feminism is exclusively for white women and white men. When she tweeted back in August “things women don’t lie about: rape.” she meant white women don’t lie about rape and furthermore white men don’t lie about not raping women of colour. Why else would she tweet so thoughtfully then, but today fix her Becky fingers to tweet “I believe in a lot of things but the first tenet of my politics is to hold up the people who have held me up…”?”
— Danielle Dash, Lena Dunham & Weaponised White Feminism
Tagged: lena dunham, White Feminism
“Lena Dunham is pretty much the quintessential “Marketplace Feminist,” with her lifestyle-marketing “Lenny Letter” which, in July, “talked about the importance of women in science — thanks to a check from General Electric” in a week-long brand placement deal.”
— Peter Coffin, Enough of Lena Dunham’s “Marketplace Feminism” – Peter Coffin – Medium
Tagged: Capitalism, Neoliberalism, White Feminism
“Lena has been schooled SO many times -especially on what it means to stand with black women. And time and time again, she chooses not to.”
— Brittany Packnett
Tagged: lena dunham, White Feminism
“While missteps are a given for young women developing in the spotlight (particularly if you're wealthy and white), Dunham has made no effort to take up less space, to pass the microphone or to, at the very least, listen to and grow from any of the legitimate criticism she's received.

Over the years, she's offered support for the pro-choice movement by saying she wished she had experienced an abortion, something that is unnecessary and in fact undermines some of the very necessary arguments for reproductive rights. Elsewhere, she's compared Bill Cosby crimes to the Holocaust and attempted to shame Odell Beckham Jr. for being apparently uninterested in sleeping with her (yes, this really happened). Both of those cases had strong racial undercurrents.'”
— Rachel Lea, Lena Dunham is cancelled
“Lena Dunham may be the first person to fabricate details of her alleged rape, then proclaim all women’s claims need to be believed, and then publicly accuse a young woman of lying about having been raped.

Finally, the star and creator of “Girls” has been exposed as the empty vessel she is.”
— Maureen Callahan, Good riddance to Lena Dunham
Tagged: White Feminism, lena dunham, Pop Culture