Hillary Clinton Tells Lena Dunham She’s ‘Puzzled’ by Women Who Aren’t Feminists

Does Clinton view herself as a feminist?

Dunham lobbed a few other softball questions at Clinton, allowing the candidate to talk about her experiences allegedly gutting salmon in Alaska for one summer, about her student-debt relief plan, and about her marriage to Bill. In video? Her patrician opacity is more on display, as in the awkward Kravitz exchange.

“So many young women of color – so many people of color – have suffered at the hands of police in the last few years”. Also, a lot of the community policing, community dialogue that we started to have a few years ago has sort of petered out.

Dunham would have preferred a less measured response.

“I think even if you think you can separate yourself from the kind of verbal violence that’s being directed at you, that it creates a few really kind of cancerous stuff inside you, even if you think, ‘Oh I can read like 10 mentions that say I should be stoned to death, ‘” she continues. After all, that’s what she did with Bill. Dunham promises a variety of voices that speak “to your identity”.

Added Konner, referring to the Gawker site aimed at women’s issues: “I have been really disappointed with Jezebel, which was something I used to love so much, and now it feels nearly entirely full of snark and cynicism”. The newsletter offers subscribers a weekly dose of feminism in an effort to increase young women’s political engagement. But don’t tell that to Lena Dunham – whose own wardrobe is far worse.

“All that needs to exist at the same time”, she says. The rest of us just learned that the feminist concept of “toxic masculinity” has a female counterpart.

Clinton was also given the rare opportunity to defend her Donna Karan off-the-shoulder dress that made waves back in 1993. She swam “illegally” in her the lake on campus and took part in a protest to get Wellesley to ease the tough curfew on visiting men.

For her part, Clinton seemed to enjoy the flashback.

The writers at Lenny asked the former first lady what she thought of Sandra Bland’s case, the women who died while in police custody in Texas. That’s a period of such exploration and often torment in people’s lives.

And yet, Dunham is acutely aware of how hard it’s going to be to pull this off. Gwyneth Paltrow, for example, is mocked for running a successful business providing tips and resources to a well-heeled crowd – something completely ordinary were it not for her celebrity.

“When you’re making a TV show you’re really only getting feedback through the internet in a bubble”, says Dunham.