Lena Dunham Writes About Infertility & the Online Community of IVF Warriors; IVF Warriors Respond
I wrote this piece for the many women who have been failed by their own biology, but who have been further failed by society’s inability to imagine another role for them outside of mother. @Harpers https://t.co/vpok8B504Z
- Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 16, 2020
** immediately started scrolling through adoption websites "like they were furniture outlets" while she was recovering from her hysterectomy
** she writes: "When my family and friends told me to slow down, I insisted that they didn’t understand. Worse yet, they were being ableist and old-fashioned. What were five holes in my stomach and a Vicodin habit twenty milligrams deep? Michael Jackson dangled his baby from a hotel balcony for everyone to see, and he got to keep it. Who was going to question me?"
** after 3 of her friends became pregnant while she was in rehab for addiction to pain killers, she started looking for friends online. discovered "IVF Warriors"
** regarding IVF Warriors: she describes the tshirts people make, the hashtags, and the photos of needles needed for injections. all this to undergo a "process that is designed to make Mother Nature your bitch and to defy a basic fact of human existence dating back to Sarah and Abraham: fertility is not a right, it’s a privilege."
** she also writes: "If there’s one person less welcome among the IVF Warriors than a new mother, it is a woman who has given up on becoming one."
This is why Lena Dunham’s latest essay hurt other women struggling with fertility.https://t.co/Sn6pYDvQeh
- SheKnows (@SheKnows) November 20, 2020
** though they understand Dunham's anger and resentment, many women struggling with infertility were hurt by Dunham's "disdainful" and patronizing generalizations
** "She described us as privileged, yoga-pant-wearing white women with much older male partners [...] It felt like we were being portrayed as a bunch of mean girls who chose to be in this awful club."
** notes that it is important to acknowledge the privilege of IVF is not afforded to many, "but it is also important to note that while Dunham seems completely comfortable with making accusations of privilege and toxic positivity within the infertility community, it doesn’t seem like she actually tried to understand it at all, let alone use her platform to help amplify its mission."
SOURCES: 1 | 2
I understand infertility is a hard thing to come to terms with, but I just don't get why she was so condescending about other women dealing with it. I hope it came across in my summary but if not, the essay itself is worth a skim.