14 DAY TRIAL // Lena Dunham says she’s very hard to bring down because she’s a confident woman who knows her worth without having someone else validate her, but even she has her limits. They were tested about one week ago, when she posted to her Instagram a photo of herself in her boyfriend’s Calvin Klein boxers.
In almost no time, her Instagram and her Twitter feeds had turned into a “disgusting” debate on the female body, and she was getting considerable negative feedback because of her weight. She quit Twitter then, bringing someone else to handle the account in her name.
No one should have this kind of verbal abuse directed at them
The photo in question is available below. Dunham tells Kara Swisher on the podcast Re/code Decode that she took it because she found it hilarious that she ended up in her boyfriend’s knickers after her dog ate hers.
She wasn’t trying to show off her body and she wasn’t trying to make a statement. She only wanted to share with her fans a slice of her daily life, such as it was.
Instead, she got criticism, negativity and awful things about her body, including how she was a shameless fat pig who should learn to show some restraint at the dinner table.
“It turned into the most rabid, disgusting debate about women's bodies, and my Instagram page was somehow the hub for misogynists for the afternoon,” Lena explains.
She adds that she was concerned because girls who come on her page because they like her would “be told I'm obese and anyone who looks like me is repulsive and I deserve to be dragged around and smacked.”
She was also disheartened by many of the mean things that were being written about her: Lena admits that she’s confident and upbeat, but also with a thick skin, but not even she is immune to this kind of hatred.
Signing off Twitter
In the end, she understood that she had to do something for her sanity, and that thing turned out to be quitting Twitter. Her account is still active and it’s still getting regular updates, but it’s not her who’s doing all the posting.
Lena admits that she doesn’t even know the new password for it, so she doesn’t check it at all. It simply wasn’t a “safe place” for her.
The same goes for publications like Gawker and Jezebel, of which she clearly disapproves because they continue to publish articles objectifying and demeaning women.
TBH this was a rough week. It felt like my body, my hormones, my general sense of well-being were betraying me. I wanted to crumple into a pile or hide like a sweatshirt in the lost and found. And I felt as though there wasn't a way to ask for the space and time I needed without hurting someone else. What a shitty feeling, but isn't that the reality for so many of us? I am certainly no self-help guru but here is what I know tonight: when you take the time and space you need, kindly and responsibly, you're suddenly available to the people you love in a whole new way. There is no other answer (except Calvins... Nothing gets between us.) A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Sep 16, 2015 at 9:31pm PDT