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The Idea Of Being A Feminist-so Many Women Have Come To This Idea Of It Being Anti-male And Not Able To Connect With The Opposite Sex-but What Feminism Is About Is Equality And Human Rights. For Me That Is Just An Essential Part Of My Identity. I Hope [girls] Contributes To A Continuance Of Feminist Dialogue

-Lena Dunham

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The Idea Of Being

Lena Dunham

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The Idea Of Being A Feminist-so Many Women Have Come To This Idea Of It Being Anti-male And Not Able To Connect With The Opposite Sex-but What Feminism Is About Is Equality And Human Rights. For Me That Is Just An Essential Part Of My Identity. I Hope [girls] Contributes To A Continuance Of Feminist Dialogue

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Self Reflection

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Reflecting Back

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I Think About My Best Friendship - Which The Marnie-hannah Friendship In Girls Is Based On - As Like A Great Romance Of My Young Life.

The Way In Which You Share Your Body Must Be A Choice. Support These Women And Do Not Look At These Pictures.

I Would Have Specific Books [when I Was 12 Or 13] That Had Pages That I Knew Had Sex On Them That I Would Go And Read.

The Experience Of Directing Yourself In A Sex Scene Is, In A Way, Great. It's The Fantasy We All Have In Our Lives All The Time.

You’ve Learned A New Rule And It’s Simple: Don’t Put Yourself In Situations You’d Like To Run Away From. But When You Run, Run Back To Yourself, Like That Bunny In Runaway Bunny Runs To Its Mother, But You Are The Mother And You’ll See That Later And Be Very, Very Proud.

It's Okay To Change Your Mind. About A Feeling, A Person, A Promise Of Love.

I Actually Didn't Enjoy Being A Child Particularly At All Even Though I Had Nice Parents In A Comfortable Place To Live. Just Because I Was Too Confused In Generating Too Many Answers For Myself That Just Scared Me More.

I Never Thought Of Myself As Like, A Funny Person.

Feminism And Issues Surrounding Being Female In The World, Always, But Particularly Right Now At This Complicated Cultural Moment. It's A Huge Part Of What's Important To Me.

I've Always Been Someone Who Feels Better, If I See What I'm Going Through In A Movie.

People Are Ultimately Threatened By Young People Taking Positions Of Power.

Position Of Power

If Someone Doesn't Answer Your Email Within Six Hours, It Means They Hate You.

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I'm So Proud Of Jason's [benjamin] Work. I Can Say This And He Can't, But There's No Group Of Documentary Subjects More Devoted To Their Documentarian. The Vibes Are Really Positive, And I Feel So Lucky.

Let's Be Reasonable And Add An Eighth Day To The Week That Is Devoted Exclusively To Reading.

None Of My Actions Have Ever Sort Of Been Motored By The Search For A Husband Or Wondering If I Was Going To Have A Family Someday Or Wanting To Live In A Really Great House Or Thinking It Would Be Really Great To Have A Diamond.

I Used To Think Twitter Was A Waste Of Time And Sort Of Ran Counter To My Ability To Be Productive And To Write And Now Twitter Feels Like A Really Cool Part Of The Creative Experience.

I Am Not A Particularly Political Person, But, As A Tribeca Resident, The Commodification Of September 11th Is Offensive To Me.

I Seriously Consider Television To Be The People's Medium. Like The Idea Of Seeing Your Parents Naked Or Having Somebody Go Down On You And Worrying About Whether You Smell, Or Worrying About Whether Your Body Is Weird Or What Goes Across The Face Of A Person Who's Supposed To Be Experiencing Pleasure But Isn't - Those Are Things I'd Love To Normalize On Tv.

My Thoughts On Body Image Are Simple: If You Are Being Kind To Yourself Mentally And Physically You Never Have Anything To Be Ashamed For, Ever.

There Is A Sort Of Backlash Of People Who Feel Like You're Not Representing Them Accurately, And You Want To Say As Elegantly As You Can, "i Wasn't Trying To Represent You I, Was Just Doing What I Could Do To Make Being Alive Easier For Me." And If It Helped Anyone Or Made Them Feel Comforted In The Process Then It's The Greatest Thing You Can Ask For.

Every Time I Start Feeling Sexy I Trip.

When We, As Young Women, Are Given The Space To Read, The Act Becomes A Happy, Private Corner We Can Return To For The Rest Of Our Lives. We Develop This Love Of Reading By Turning To Stories That Speak To The Most Special, Secret Parts Of Us.

I Consider Being Female Such A Unique Gift, Such A Sacred Joy, In Ways That Run So Deep I Can't Articulate Them. It's A Special Kind Of Privilege To Be Born Into The Body You Wanted, To Embrace The Essence Of Your Gender Even As You Recognize What You Are Up Against. Even As You Seek To Redefine It.

I Just Don't Want To Be Around People Who Don't Hate Everything In Their Life Right Now.

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I'm Glad If My Work Can Make A Difference.

Making A Difference

I Love Flawed Female Characters, Duking It Out.

I Didn't Have To Wait Six Years To Get My Show On The Air, Worry That Someone Else Had A Similar Idea, Or Wait Around For Notes That Took My Voice Out Of The Show.

I Have Been Envious Of Male Characteristics, If Not The Men Themselves. I'm Jealous Of The Ease With Which They Seem To Inhabit Their Professional Pursuits: The Lack Of Apologizing, Of Bending Over Backward To Make Sure The People Around Them Are Comfortable With What They're Trying To Do. The Fact That They Are So Often Free Of The People-pleasing Instincts I Have Considered To Be A Curse Of My Female Existence.

I Think That People In The Phase Between Being Someone's Kid And Being Someone's Parent Have Always Been Uniquely Narcissistic, But That Social Media And Twitter And Livejournal Make It Really Easy To Navel-gaze In A Way That You've Never Been Able To Before. People Taking Pictures Of What They Eat And Showing Them On Their Facebook. People Assume That People Have A Level Of Interest In What They're Doing That's Maybe Far Greater Than It Is, Although There Is An Audience For All That Stuff.

One Of The Reasons I'm So Proud Of My Mother Is She Took Her Skills Of Over A 40 Years Photographic Career And Translated That To A Film.

I Don't Think Anyone Would Want To Come To My Gallery Show.

My Parents Are Pretty Liberal. But They Were Just You Know Trying To Look Out For My Innocence Or Whatever. But My Babysitter Had "forever" [by Judy Blume]. And I Said "well I've Read Judy Blume Books, Can I Borrow That?" And She Said No, This One's Not Appropriate For You. Which Obviously, Got Me Really Worked Up. So I Took It.

I Feel Lucky In That The Same Way I've Surrounded Myself With People I'm Creatively Comfortable With, I've Surrounded Myself With People Who Are Accepting Of The Way That I Look.

My Relationship To Eating, My Relationship To Critiquing My Own Shape, All Of That Has Changed Since I've Started Viewing My Body Much More As A Tool To Do My Work.

It's Funny, I Never Considered That People Are Going To See Me On The Show And Maybe Stop Me On The Subway.

There Is Nothing Gutsier To Me Than A Person Announcing That Their Story Is One That Deserves To Be Told, Especially If That Person Is A Woman. As Hard As We Have Worked And As Far As We Have Come, There Are Still So Many Forces Conspiring To Tell Women That Our Concerns Are Petty, Our Opinions Aren’t Needed, That We Lack The Gravitas Necessary For Our Stories To Matter. That Personal Writing By Women Is No More Than An Exercise In Vanity And That We Should Appreciate This New World For Women, Sit Down, And Shut Up.

For Me, My Life Goal Is To Be In A Position Where I Can Wear Pajamas 24 Hours A Day. That's What Makes Me Happy.

I Thought I Was Really A Radical, Political Person, Which Of Course I Am Not.

Enjoy Going Through Life As Yourself.

It Is Really Funny How Even Cool Chicks Are Sort Of Like, 'our Moms Covered That Feminism Thing And Now We're Living In A Post-that World,' When That Just Isn't True.

I'm Always Afraid That I'm Being Unprofessional, Yet I Continue To Sign All My E-mails 'xoxo.'

I Feel Like I Don't Watch That Many Shows With Death.

I Do Think Girls In Their Twenties Accept Certain Kinds Of Lesser Treatment Than They Would At Other Times In Their Lives.

I Sort Of Tend To Equate Tattoos With Prisoners, Punks Or People With A High Level Of Self-confidence. I Don’t Necessarily Have A Covered-in-tattoos Personality.

Self Confidence

If You're Writing, You're Starting In Private. It Can Really Be This Amazing, Private, Freeing Experience. Forget That It's For Other People - That Comes In Later.

Survivors Are So Often Re-victimized By A System That Demands They Prove Their Purity And Innocence.

Purity And Innocence

Basically, Anything A Sexual Predator Might Do To Woo A Small Suburban Girl, I Was Trying.

I've Always Loved My Own Little Office Spaces No Matter What They Were Like. It's The Virginia Woolf, Room Of One's Own Concept, It's Really Important.

My Mom Said The Term Heavy Petting Existed A Lot When She Was In High School.

You Know, When I First Started Making Online Videos, There Were A Lot Of Filmmakers I Befriended Who Were Doing It Too.

Now If You Went To Someone's House To Look For Them, You Would Be A Psychopath.

The Work That's Interesting To Me In Other People Is Really Confessional.

I Always Thought The Saddest Feeling In Life Is When You're Dancing In A Really Joyful Way And Then You Hit Your Head On Something.

But I Am A Girl With A Keen Interest In Having It All, And What Follows Are Hopeful Dispatches From The Frontlines Of That Struggle.

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Sarah Michelle Gellar

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