As if 2016 hadn't done quite enough already, it just had to go and let me know that I have something in common with Lena Dunham. Well sort of.
Dunham, as we all know, has a penchant for putting her foot in her mouth. Public flagellations of the one-time prodigy have become so common, Newsweek just made a listicle of all the times Dunham has apologised in 2016 alone.
![Actress Lena Dunham at the Glamour Live Summit 2016.](/web/20161226151155im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/5/p/f/j/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtgyhh.png/1482457783013.jpg)
Now, some of Dunham's past missteps should not be dismissed lightly, nor do I want to mount an unnecessary defence of an extremely successful and privileged woman. But I have to admit this current outrage has me puzzled.
On the latest episode of her podcast, Women of the Hour, Dunham brought up abortion stigma - the tendency for society to, despite its prevalence, view abortion as a moral failing that only "those" sorts of women do, or at least admit to.
Of course, we know this is ridiculous because the statistics tell us: One in three women will have one and 95 per cent of those won't regret it. Most women who have one already have at least one child. It is one of the most common medical procedures.
But still this stigma persists. It was this that Dunham, in her own clumsy way, tried to address. In her story, Dunham recalls a young woman who has approached her outside an abortion clinic, asking her to be part of a project in which women share their abortion stories. Despite her years of abortion activism, Dunham says:
"I sort of jumped. 'I haven't had an abortion!' I told her. I wanted to make it really clear to her that as much as I was going out and fighting for other women's options, I myself had never had an abortion. And I realised that even I was carrying within myself stigma around this issue. Even I, the woman who cares as much as anybody about a woman's right to choose felt it was important that people know I was unblemished in this department ... I knew that I had internalised what society was throwing at us and I had to put it in the garbage. Now I can say that I still hadn't had an abortion but I wish I had."
With that last line, Dunham managed to infuriate both the anti-choice camp for making light of "killing babies," and feminists for trivialising the process "as some fun activity."
I don't know. Maybe I am having trouble maintaining the rage as I age but I can't summon up any anger at all in this statement. I'm more offended at how such a talented writer could think that last line didn't need any more editing.
Other than that, I figured, she probably just meant she thought that her advocacy would be strengthened if she'd experienced that which she so strongly believes in.
I say this because in the past I have thought much the same thing. As a younger woman advocating for reproductive rights, my concern was as much for myself as other women. I wanted to know that abortion would be an option for me if I ever needed it. But, to be honest, similarly to Dunham, I used to take a sort of pride in quickly shooting down anyone who called me a "baby killer" by triumphantly telling them I'd never had one.
So, yes, on that point Dunham is right: even some of us died-in-the-wool femmos can and do internalise this stigma.
But back to the offending line. Or non-offending line, from where I stand. As I got older, and it dawned on me that one day the abortion fight would no longer be about me, that I could well soon be someone who will never need one nor had ever had one, I did start to wonder if I would in essence be fighting someone else's battle. It was that fear of impending irrelevancy that my input may not be needed, not even in so much as having my own "abortion story," that makes me somewhat sympathetic to Dunham's faux pas.
Now, I don't think Dunham's statement was that complex. Rather, it seems she was merely trying to light-heartedly show solidarity with women who had abortions, and to let her audience know that she no longer felt that internalised stigma.
In the inevitable apology, Dunham blamed her "delusion girl persona" saying it was poor attempt at a joke. Given it was such an offhand, silly comment, it's worth asking whether what she said was so offensive or whether we have reached the point that anything even mildly un-woke that Dunham says is an occasion to cut her down to size? I'm sure some women were personally offended, but from much of the reaction I am seeing online, there is also a good deal of the latter.
But, more worryingly, I think the reaction somewhat proves her point about stigma. For as much as feminists attempt to normalise abortion as nothing to be ashamed of, that Dunham is being admonished for making light of what society still likes to imagine is an excruciating decision indicates we still allow the anti-choice side to set the framework for the debate.
Abortion, it seems, is still too taboo, too icky, too much of a thing only bad women have, or least admit to having, for such an offhand and completely harmless remark to pass by without a major brouhaha.
People are accusing Dunham of setting abortion rights back, but it's the outrage that ultimately does nothing to tackle the stigma anti-choicers have been so adept at creating. Giving more weight to Dunham's words than they deserve plays right into their hands, and it may be wise to resist the temptation to drag her over this, no matter what mistakes she has made in the past, and no doubt will make again.