Don't Agonize, Organize (Lena Dunham Essay on Hillary Clinton loss)

LennyLetter.com ^ | 11-11-2016 | Lena Dunham

[Snickering Hound]

I woke up on Election Day like a bride: rosy, thrilled, a little controlling about just how MY perfect day would be spent. After working on the Clinton campaign for eighteen months, I was ready to celebrate, and sure that by nightfall I'd be knocking back glasses of champagne and creating a story to tell my unborn children. Maybe I'd even get close enough to Hillary Clinton to hug her, to whisper "Thank you." I had dreamed about it every night for the last two weeks.

At a certain point it became clear something had gone horribly wrong. Celebrants' faces turned. The modeling had been incorrect. Watching the numbers in Florida, I touched my face and realized I was crying. "Can we please go home?" I said to my boyfriend. I could tell he was having trouble breathing, and I could feel my chin breaking into hives. Another woman showed me her matching hive, hidden by fresh concealer.

I hugged the women I had spent eighteen months with, laughing and plotting and spreading our love for Hillary Clinton and her message. My party dress felt tight and itchy.

By the time we'd made it over the bridge, a friend called. "It's over," she said. "I love you." I was frozen. We stopped at the diner. No one was speaking as they ate, no one in the whole place.

At home I got in the shower and began to cry even harder. My boyfriend, who had already wept, watched me as I mumbled incoherently, clutching myself. "It wasn't supposed to go this way. It was supposed to be her job. She worked her whole life for the job. It's her job."

[Boogieman]

“so predictble. all you have to do is determine how a teenager would react. you’ll always get the right results.”

I think you’re being too generous. They do have the entitlement and unearned sense of superiority of teenagers, but most teenagers have outgrown throwing emotional temper tantrums when they don’t get their way. So I would say intellectually they are teenagers, emotionally, they are toddlers.

[bigdaddy45]

Wow this is fun to read. She should have recorded the whole night for posterity. Would have been even better!

Two things shocked me. Boyfriend? (who wept. Of course he did) “Unborn children”??

[Charles Martel]

starting off the piece with such an anti-feminist reference to a woman-oppressive institution her ilk equate to slavery?

Apparently in Lena's mind, Hillary's victory and the following inauguration were taking the shape of "My Big Fat Lesbian Wedding" - and indeed, we have been spared a horrific spectacle.

[needmorePaine]

But we kept going, thinking these were the dying moans of the dragon known as the patriarchy being stabbed again and again in the stomach. We believed that on November 9, they'd be licking their wounds while we celebrated. It is painful on a cellular level knowing those men got what they wanted, just as it's painful to know you are hated for daring to ask for what is yours. It's painful to know that white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves, showed up to the polls for him, too. My voice was literally lost when I woke up, squeaky and raw, and I ached in the places that make me a woman, the places where I've been grabbed so carelessly, the places we are struggling to call our own.

The bolded parts show her for who she is.
She views men as monsters needing to be violently stabbed to death. She views women as a collective, and all must conform or else attacked for their self-hatred. Women can't be individuals with their own values, thoughts, wants, needs, or desires; they must serve female identity.

And I love the illustration that accompanies the article. A Muslim woman, a Strong Black Woman, and a white woman with funky hair and a muffin top in front. The only man clearly seen is carrying a baby. The biggest flag is the rainbow flag, with a tiny little American flag in the hands of the little girl Muslim.

[palmer]

Good stuff: It is painful on a cellular level knowing those men got what they wanted, just as it's painful to know you are hated for daring to ask for what is yours. It's painful to know that white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves, showed up to the polls for him, too

[bigdaddy45]

I’m on a conference call. Good thing I had the mute button on or everyone would have wondered what i was laughing hysterically about.

[palmer]

Oops, I see you already quoted the section I quoted. I was so inoculated with self-hatred (or something) I didn’t read your comment before I posted.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Chastity 'Chaz' Bono, perhaps? 😉

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Wasn’t this woman supposed to move to Canada? Liberals never keep their word..

[Gaffer]

Whoever does this fatass’s makeup, etc. for these “Hollywood Functions” is an effing magician! A certified, REAL magician.

[Gaffer]

Calvin Klein should sue her for malicious debasement of his products.

[Tennessee Nana]

I could feel my chin breaking into hives. Another woman showed me her matching hive, hidden by fresh concealer.
____________________________________________

AKA having a bee-in-her-bonnet...

or something...

[gymbeau]

Please quit sending these twits to Canada! We have more than enough already.

Cheers,
Jim

[Mrs. Don-o]

"I’d encourage her to be a nun. No sense in letting such damaged goods have any chance of procreation."

Why so mean to nuns?

I’d encourage her to be a hermit. No sense in letting such damaged goods have any chance of ruining a perfectly good convent.

[Mrs. Don-o]

These are the supposed-to-be-women who say females are strong enough to handle the infantry --- strong enough to handle the Presidency --- but (alas) not strong enough to handle a pregnancy.

Not surprised they can't handle democracy. It makes them simply collapse, the poor dears. Where's Mommy? Oh, where's Mommy?

[Maverick68]

You Freepers don’t get it: To these snowflakes, TRUE EQUALITY and FREEDOM are in fact oppressive....

[Brooklyn Attitude]

Dumham has a lot of nerve criticising Trump after she admitted falsely accused a man of rape and sexually assaulted her own sister.

[fini]

Pictures, pictures, PICTURES!! I want pictures. And sound, sound would bed nice. I want to enjoy the lament of her boy/girl/friend or what ever he calls himself.

It is Friday evening, I want to enjoy the closing hours

[Drew68]

Dunham’s essay is flat-out the funniest sh*t I’ve ever read.

[SkyPilot]

So on Tuesday — Jesus, it's almost embarrassing to remember — I smugly selected a baby-blue sweater with a not-so-subtle pussy motif and headed to vote with my boyfriend, smiling at the elderly socialists on my block like it was Sesame Street. I packed my HRC 2016 memorabilia into a brown box with my I VOTED sticker smacked on top. I spent the afternoon phone-banking with friends, and it felt more like icing on the cake than urgent business. Because as horrifying as I found Donald Trump's rhetoric, as hideous as I found his racism and xenophobia, as threatening to basic decency as I found his demagogue persona, I never truly believed he could win.

I see she could not help profaning the name of Jesus. The rest of this reads like satire, but it isn't satire.