This Lena Dunham Story About Hollywood Sexism Is Horrifying

Hollywood sexism is a bit dog-bites-man at this point. Sure, it's horrific, but it's also so common that it's hard to get up for each specific instance. Sometimes, though, stories get told that shock even the most jaded of audiences. On that note, we bring to your attention a story shared in a Lenny Letter newsletter by Girls showrunner Jenni Konner about a particular instance Lena Dunham faced of a man behaving insanely badly. It starts off with the man, a director, showing Dunham “an iPhone photo of a mutual friend with a cock next to her face, ostensibly a still from his TV show but shown at a completely inappropriate time.” That inappropriate time would be a dinner. It gets so much better, or worse, depending on your sense of humor. "The director asked Lena to have dinner alone the following night with an actress on the show he works on," Konner writes. "Not because he thought they should meet, but because he wanted Lena to persuade the actress to 'show her tits, or at least some vag' on TV. Surely Lena could make a compelling argument. After all, he continued, 'You would show anything. Even your asshole.'" That's not only horrific, it's also inaccurate. And, if we're not crazy, doesn't "some vag" count as way more exposed than "her tits"? That's like being denied a dollar and asking if you can just live at the person's house instead. This guy, who's clearly an asshole, was denied in his journey. Konner said she didn't want to wait until an interview to share this because she wanted to enable other women to speak out. “When we share, we unlock other women’s stories, and suddenly secrets don’t seem so necessary," she writes. "The only thing standing between men and outdated, hideous behavior is their ability to get away with it.” Brava. And seriously, don't do that. (Vulture)