The right’s Lena Dunham delusion: Anger, misogyny and the dangers of business as usual

[ismnotwasm]

In a chapter of her book called “Girls & Jerks,” Dunham recounts, in her trademark style of dark absurdism delivered with a smile, “an ill-fated evening of lovemaking” with a “mustachioed campus Republican” named Barry. It involves a condom flung into a tree, a clueless partner and, to wrap it all up, a righteous moment of feminist power when Dunham throws the man’s shoes and clothes out the door and tells him to hit the road. Because of the title’s chapter, we are meant to understand this guy as a jerk Dunham has known and fucked. We read, cringe a little, move on.

But in another chapter, this one called “Barry,” Dunham returns to the encounter with the mustachioed condom-flinger, writing, ““n another essay in this book I describe a sexual encounter with a mustachioed campus Republican as the upsetting but educational choice of a girl who was new to sex when, in fact, it didn’t feel like a choice at all.” She then recounts the story again, sharing other details. How intoxicated she was, how aggressive Barry was, the medical attention she required after it all ended, the shame and confusion she felt as she remembered and contended with the experience. “I never gave permission to be rough, to stick himself inside me without a barrier between us,” she writes. “I never gave him permission. In my deepest self I know this, and the knowledge of it has kept me from sinking.

It’s a painful chapter to read, to watch Dunham navigate her own competing narratives — of righteous anger, of laughing self-preservation, of self-blame — about an experience that felt dangerous and scary but also, somehow, like it was her fault. I know very few women who don’t have a story like this, women who, like Dunham, feel that what happened to them was violating and wrong while also believing that “there are fifty ways it’s my fault.” Dunham is also, like so many other women, not always exactly sure what to call what happened. She also, like so many other women, wants the reader to understand why that’s OK.

After expressing some outrage about Dunham’s wealth and privilege (who would have guessed that Williamson was such a socialist?), he targets her for writing about Barry, questions whether she is telling the truth, seems to suggest that Dunham should share her medical records as evidence of the incident and then calls the chapter a public lynching. It’s gross, and it’s predictable in its grossness. There is no empathy for Dunham to be found because, to Williamson, the story is all about Barry.

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/17/the_rights_lena_dunham_delusion_anger_misogyny_and_the_dangers_of_business_as_usual/

[F4lconF16]

2. Falling asleep, but

I thought this was a very interesting article. I like the way it was written, I think it frames the issues well and makes its point clearly. I have a couple people I'll share it with.

K&R

Edit: gahh, accidental self-delete. Just got off work, I'm tired, and I have a very broken touch-screen

[seabeyond]

3. i might come back and read in a more comprehensive manner, but. it is the edcuation of our girls

on these issues, like never before. that is what is driving the patriarchal sexist assholes wild in hate. because. one advantage men always had of our girls, was conditioning our girls their sexuality. and today, us women in experience, are able to say out loud, men do not get to define our sexuality. we are empowered in defining our own sexuality. fuck evo psychology in the name of science, religion, gamer boys, congress, the police, judge, doctor, MAN.... defining our sexuality girls.

the more women that say, ... a half a glass of wine at a company christmas party, resulting in black outs.... does not = consent in any manner. there is no way to twist it in consent.

we now hear men advocating, there right to womens sexuality without consent.

that is where we are today.

revenge porn, stealing private pictures, gamers (they are in headlights), so much more we often discuss. and we discuss it not to change the minds of these fuckers. we discuss it because the more our girls are aware, the more they will recognize the abhorrent wrong, all the while society and our culture insist they feel shamed, and at fault, and hysterical, and absurd, and you know.... women lie.

silence. is never the answer.

we educate our girls, on what male privilege and entitlement looks like. and. they try to report a molester to the point of risking physical self to take a picture of the fucker, rejected by police, they take it on line. and SHOW.... the fucker, and tweet the police lack of professionalism, to the point of getting the man arrested.

then us girls and women look at the picture of the pervert, the creep, the bottomfeeder. and we read what the young woman experienced and did. and we become more aware.

it is the awareness that is the backlash.

men are loosing their world of creep.

[ismnotwasm]

4. It's surprisingly good for a short article; another zinger, that sounds exactly what you are saying

And what we see in small microcosms, all over the Internet, DU being no exception

Earlier this week, Roxane Gay opened a piece in the Guardian with an exchange she had with a young woman who asked her how to make feminism more accessible to men. “I told her that I don’t care about making feminism more accessible to men,” she wrote. “In truth, I don’t care about making feminism more accessible to anyone.” Gay’s lack of interest in rebranding feminism to make it more palatable is, I think, applicable here. So is a recent piece from Black Girl Dangerous creator Mia McKenzie, who wrote critically of the United Nations’ HeForShe campaign for, among its other problems, centering men while ignoring “just how much men do benefit from gender inequality.”

This benefit is why so many men (and women, frankly) want to talk about false accusations in order to derail a more sweeping conversation about affirmative consent. It’s why public conversations about sexual violence are rarely about power, privilege and structures. It is also why so many men want to silence women who are sharing their stories outside the narrow parameters of what’s currently acceptable. Because talking about non-consent and violence against women as something that isn’t just about monsters who creep in the night – but as something that pervades the culture, operates interpersonally and institutionally — means being implicated in it, owning that responsibility and figuring out where to go from there.

[seabeyond]

5. this very core is what i started addressing five years ago. it isnt a party issue. atheist/religous

issue, gamer/nerder/"niceguy" issue, it is a mens issue. the hardest challenge for me, has been good, intellectually aware, just men that can not step over the line they draw themselves in the right and wrong, and address this crap. because.... they hold that man card, of privilege and entitlement, and they do not want to give that up.

and that i feel is the largest group of our men

[seabeyond]

6. ok. ism. i gotta get on my day. thank you for this insight, and opportunity for thought and

awareness. that leads to progression, forward, that allows a rise, lol.




on a different note cause i hijack so well, lol.

thank you for the last couple days. it is fun and interesting cause.... i grew up in southwest indian. of flat bread and totem and fun.

[ismnotwasm]

7. ...