“Distinctly Unappealing” And “Half-Bright”: National Review ‘s Personal Attacks On Lena Dunham
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 29th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
“Distinctly Unappealing” And “Half-Bright”: National Review ‘s Personal Attacks On Lena Dunham
National Review Online launched an ad hominem attack on actress Lena Dunham for writing a piece for Planned Parenthood Action Fund that encourages people to vote, continuing NRO’s pattern of denigrating women who advocate for reproductive rights.
In a September 28 post headlined “Five Reasons Why You’re Too Dumb To Vote,” NRO’s Kevin D. Williamson responded to Dunham’s piece, published on the Women Are Watching blog, a project of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. In her post, clearly targeted to young women, Dunham asserted that every vote counts and urged young women to vote to protect their reproductive rights.
Williamson started his response by levying a personal attack at Dunham, calling the actress “distinctly unappealing” and describing her piece as “a half-assed listicle penned by a half-bright celebrity and published by a gang of abortion profiteers,” directed toward Dunham’s “presumably illiterate following.” He claimed that “cultural debasement” is the “only possible explanation” for Dunham’s career.
The NRO columnist echoed a previous infantilizing attack on feminism, casting Dunham’s view of voting as “nothing other than a reiteration of the original infantile demand: “I WANT!” Williamson also took issue with Dunham’s encouraging young women to vote on issues that directly affect them, framing an interest in reproductive rights as an “‘all about me!’ attitude”:
Miss Dunham’s “all about me!” attitude toward the process of voting inevitably extends to the content of what she votes for, which is, in her telling, mostly about her sex life. Hammering down hard on the Caps Lock key, she writes: “The crazy and depressing truth is that there are people running for office right now who could actually affect your life. PARTICULARLY your sex life. PARTICULARLY if you’re a woman. Yup.”
Yup? Nope.
NRO has continually launched sexist and infantilizing attacks on women like Sandra Fluke and Wendy Davis who defend reproductive rights.
