Lena Dunham, professional waste of space and champion of all things tasteless and obnoxious, has found a new way to insult women everywhere and insert herself front and center on an issue that has nothing to do with her.
To all appearances Dunham has everything anyone could reasonably want in life. She’s on TV, she’s wealthy, she gets a total pass for admitting that she molested her sister. Despite all of her privilege, Dunham decided to inform the world that it’s not enough, because she hasn’t had the chance to have an abortion.
Dunham lacks the depth and imagination to fully throw in behind a cause that doesn’t directly touch her life, and abortion is no different for her. Her support of abortion isn’t because of any intrinsic beliefs about women’s autonomy, or the dangers of pregnancy and birth, or overpopulation.
No, her support is wrapped around the experiences of those women in her life who are close to her: “So many people I love – my mother, my best friends – have had to have abortions for all kinds of reasons. I feel so proud of them for their bravery, for their self-knowledge, and it was a really important moment for me then to realize I had internalized some of what society was throwing at us and I had to put it in the garbage. Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.”
Dunham loves women who have had abortions, and that means that she wants one, too. She’s lessened the seriousness of abortion to something to do just because other peers have done it, or to prove a point. Her attempt today to walk back on these comments as a “distasteful joke” only confirms this is what she really thinks. In context her comments were not joking at all. They’re an attempt at sentimentality that only displays her sentiments are tied to all the wrong things. Her apology is, true to form, self-referential in the extreme and unintentionally, painfully funny:
My words were spoken from a sort of ‘delusional girl’ persona I often inhabit, a girl who careens between wisdom and ignorance (that’s what my TV show is too) and it didn’t translate. That’s my fault. I would never, ever intentionally trivialize the emotional and physical challenges of terminating a pregnancy.
Because there’s no group Dunham is unwilling to try to insert herself into, she also has “strong” desires to be a mother: “I’ve often said to (Antonoff, her boyfriend), ‘you know, I’m kind of getting towards the point in my life where I want to have children and whether I was with you or whether I wasn’t with you, that’s what I would want to do, but let’s find a way that you want to do it.’ I’ve always wanted to be a mother as long as I’ve been on this Earth. It’s something that has been important to me.”
She wants to be a mother, whether or not her partner wants kids, and she also wants a chance to have someone knock her up so she can terminate the pregnancy. It’s all about what Dunham wants, and the rest of the people in her life are there as frames for her next set of experiences.
Lena Dunham took other people's painful experience, trivialized it then made it about her because LENA DUNHAM.
— Dr. Heckyll AND Mr. Jive 😷 💉 (@ChocnessMonsta) December 20, 2016
Dunham has endometriosis, a common gynecological condition that can complicate conception. Instead of showing compassion for the many women with endo who can’t conceive, or conceive after incredible hardship, she has trivialized the very real and heartbreaking struggle of many women as they try to have a baby.
She’s the kind of woman that I hope none of my daughters grow up to be — she’s selfish to a fault, manipulative, crass, and a narcissist. She doesn’t use her fame and positions of influence to help people, or push for life to be safer and better for women. Instead she creates non-existent clubs to try to fit into, while the rest of us are getting sick of having to even see her name.
Lena Dunham apologizes for her terrible abortion "joke" and blames it on her "delusional girl persona." Grade A ASSHOLE. pic.twitter.com/yNDtbnS3Jg
— KFC (@KFCBarstool) December 21, 2016
Dunham isn’t a hero, and she’s not one of us. Rather, as Barstool NY blogger KFC writes, “Shes (sic) a grown ass woman and shes (sic) talking about one of the most invasive, stressful, traumatic experiences a woman can go through! Well done! What an asshole.”
No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, Dunham is a disgrace, and she’s an example of the worst of womanhood. Dunham is a terrible person. It’s time to stop making her important, because she doesn’t use her power well.
