Caitlin Moran Explains The Whole Bitch Magazine Lena Dunham Kerfuffle

By Anna Breslaw  |  October 20, 2012 | 4:30pm
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The brevity and bluntness that distinguishes How To Be A Woman author (a tome chosen, in fact, for our very own book club) and Times of London columnist Caitlin Moran has gotten her into some hot water this week. After tweeting that she would be interviewing Lena Dunham, a random user asked: “Did you address the complete and utter lack of people of colour in girls in your interview? i sure hope so!” Moran’s response: “Nope. I literally couldn’t give a shit about it.” The user then tweeted, “What a surprise. Caitlin Moran loves Lena Dunham. White feminists who ignore the experiences of WOCs have got to stick together guys!!!”

SO, GAHH. Once again, Girls is like the titular character in Powder, running through a lightening storm of All Today’s Feminist Things, Racism Things, Classism Things, Brooklyn Things, and Things Things. Can’t we at least wait until Season 2 starts in January to start doing this again? Christ on a fucking cracker.

Bitch editor in chief Kjierstin Johnson ultimately passed on the Moran interview, citing personal issues with Moran’s subject matter (“jokes about devastating wars in non-Western countries, flippant use of the word ‘tranny,’ burlesque is cool/burqas are bad – and confirmed a nonintersectional feminism… I don’t want to support”). Dunham Twittergate didn’t help any. Interviewer Lorraine Berry ended up running it on Salon, with Moran’s expanded explanation.

“I broke my own first rule: Be Polite. But I was frankly offended that this woman thought me and Lena Dunham were somehow conspiring in some undefined racist plot… I’m not going to wank on about the ethnic mix of my friends and, indeed, family, but I found that first tweet presumptuous, rude, and about the worst thing you could accuse anyone of.”

She goes on to explain that Dunham felt there was a specificity to being a young black woman in New York that she wasn’t able to capture, which we’ve all heard and discussed at length). by now, and continues:

I wrote ‘How to Be A Woman,’ not ‘How to Be ALL Women.’ I would never presume to speak for 3.3 billion women. There is no ‘one voice of feminism.’ There is no ‘one voice’ of anything. If a woman of color was allowed to make show as funny and honest and daring as Dunham’s – wandering around slightly overweight, naked, spreckled with acne, and talking about abortion, I’d be pitching a fucking massive feature on that to the Times, too. And I wouldn’t ask that writer why there were no white characters in it, just like I didn’t ask Dunham why there were no people of color in Girls. I think it’s as dumb as asking ABBA, ‘Why aren’t one of you black?'”

Look, this subject has been beaten to death, and the Girls camp has cast Donald Glover in Season 2. Still, but no explanation’s provided on why, since it is Dunham’s show, after all, this could have also been remedied by hiring a young black female staff writer to balance out, umm, say, Lesley Arfin. But that’s just my opinion.

‘Caitlin Moran: Women have won nothing’ [Salon]

 
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