 | |
| Author | Lena Dunham |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Memoir, autobiography |
| Published | September 30, 2014 |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Pages | 265 [1] |
| ISBN | 978-0-8129-9499-5 |
Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" is a 2014 memoir written by Lena Dunham. [2] [3] The book, a collection of autobiographical essays, lists, and emails, [4] was released in hardcover by Random House on September 30, 2014, and in paperback on October 20, 2015. [5]
Random House purchased the rights to the essay collection in October 2012 after a bidding war generated by Dunham's 66-page book proposal. Bidding was reported to have risen past $3.5 million. [6] Not That Kind of Girl was published September 30, 2014. The book is dedicated to Nora Ephron. [7]
Not That Kind of Girl received positive reviews and was a commercial success, reaching number two on The New York Times Best Seller list on October 19, 2014. [8]
Sloane Crosley for The New York Times said the book was often hilarious but not ground-breaking in content. Crosley cautioned that attempts to view Dunham as a bellwether of modern feminism would unfairly overshadow the author. [9] Hadley Freeman, in a review for The Guardian , described Dunham as being a smart and talented writer, and the book as being brutally honest, but also narcissistic and thin in experience. [10] In The New Republic , James Wolcott found the book filled with "chatty punch lines, airy anecdotage, and sour kiss-offs" and, ultimately, "callow, grating, and glibly nattering." [11]
Heidi Stevens of PopMatters wrote, "But the book, as a whole, is a lovely, touching, surprisingly sentimental portrait of a woman who, despite repeatedly baring her body and soul to audiences, remains a bit of an enigma: a young woman who sets the agenda, defies classification and seems utterly at home in her own skin." [12] Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly gave the book a "B+" and that it was "guided mostly by a Woody-Allen-with-a-uterus kind of whimsy." [13]
In November 2014, Dunham and the book became a subject of controversy [14] following a profile of Dunham by conservative political commentator Kevin D. Williamson published in National Review . In her book, Dunham describes examining her sibling Cyrus's genitals when they were children out of curiosity, bribing them with candy for kisses and casually masturbating while lying in bed next to them. Williamson characterizes this as sexual abuse, [15] but Lena, Cyrus, and child psychologists, sexual abuse experts, and researchers in human sexuality have rejected this notion. [16] [17] [18]
In an interview about the controversy in Slate magazine's XX Factor blog, developmental psychologist Ritch Savin-Williams says that the cited passages do not indicate abuse and that "Children have been doing this stuff forever and ever and ever and ever, and they will do it forever and ever and ever." [16] Child sexual abuse expert David Finkelhor said that a judgement requires more than a single incident, and psychologist Sharon Lamb opined that the incidents described in the book were "within the norms of childhood sexual behavior" and that "It wouldn’t be sex offender wrong, it would be inappropriate..." [19]
Dunham later apologized for some of the wording in the book, specifically the joking use of the term 'sexual predator', which she described as insensitive. [20] [21]
Nora Ephron was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing romantic comedy films and received numerous accolades including a British Academy Film Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award and three Writers Guild of America Awards.
Vanity Fair is an American monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.
Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy, or simply JT LeRoy is a literary persona created in the 1990s by American writer Laura Albert. LeRoy was presented as the author of three books of fiction, which were purportedly semi-autobiographical accounts by a teenage boy of his experiences of poverty, drug use, and emotional and sexual abuse in his childhood and adolescence from rural West Virginia to California. Albert wrote these works, and communicated with people in the persona of LeRoy via phone and e-mail. Following the release of the first novel Sarah, Albert's sibling-in-law Savannah Knoop began to make public appearances as the supposed writer. The works attracted considerable literary and celebrity attention, and the authenticity of LeRoy has been a subject of debate, even as details of the creation came to light in the 2000s.
Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin is a 1986 book that is based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anaïs Nin. It corresponds temporally to the first volume of Nin's published diaries, written between October 1931 and October 1932, yet is radically different, in that that book begins with a description of the landscape of and around her home and never mentions her husband, whereas Henry and June begins with discussion of Nin's sex life and is full of her struggles and passionate relationship with husband Hugo, and then, as the diary/memoir progresses, other lovers.
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a sexual nature; however, some sex offenders have simply violated a law contained in a sexual category. Some of the serious crimes which usually result in a mandatory sex-offender classification are sexual assault, statutory rape, bestiality, child sexual abuse, incest, rape, and sexual imposition.
Sloane Crosley is an American writer living in New York City known for her humorous essays, including the collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There. She has also worked as a publicist at the Vintage Books division of Random House and as an adjunct professor in Columbia University's Master of Fine Arts program. She graduated from Connecticut College in 2000.
Emily Gould is an American author, novelist and blogger who worked as an editor at Gawker. She has written several short stories and novels and is the co-owner, with fellow writer Ruth Curry, of the independent e-bookstore Emily Books.
Lena Dunham is an American writer, director, actress, and producer. She is the creator, writer, and star of the HBO television series Girls (2012–2017), for which she received several Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Awards. Dunham also directed several episodes of Girls and became the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series. Prior to Girls, Dunham wrote, directed, and starred in the semi-autobiographical independent film Tiny Furniture (2010), for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. Her second feature film, Sharp Stick, written and directed by Dunham, was released in 2022. Her third film, Catherine Called Birdy, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2022. It was released in a limited release on September 23, 2022, by Amazon Studios, prior to streaming on Prime Video on October 7, 2022.
Girls is an American comedy-drama television series created by and starring Lena Dunham, executive-produced by Judd Apatow. The series depicts four young women living in New York City. The show's premise was drawn from Dunham's own life, as were major aspects of the main character, including financial isolation from her parents, becoming a writer, and making unfortunate decisions.The series is known for its post-feminist commentary and conversation around body politics and female sexual subjecthood.
Desiree Akhavan (Persian: دزیره اخوان, born December 27, 1984) is an American filmmaker, writer and actress. She is best known for her 2014 feature film debut Appropriate Behavior, and her 2018 film The Miseducation of Cameron Post. She appeared in the found footage horror film Creep 2.
Jenny Zhang is an American writer, poet, and prolific essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. One focus of her work is on the Chinese American immigrant identity and experience in the United States. She has published a collection of poetry called Dear Jenny, We Are All Find and a non-fiction chapbook called Hags. From 2011 to 2014, Zhang wrote extensively for Rookie. Additionally, Zhang has worked as a freelance essayist for other publications. In August 2017, Zhang's short story collection, Sour Heart, was the first acquisition by Lena Dunham's Lenny imprint, Lenny Books, via Random House.
Jennifer A. Konner is an American television writer, producer and director. She is best known as co-showrunner and writer with Lena Dunham of the HBO series Girls. In 2016, she directed the season finale of the fifth season of Girls entitled "I Love You Baby" and in 2017, she directed the episode "Latching," which served as the series finale; both episodes were co-written by Judd Apatow, Dunham and Konner.
Kesha v. Dr. Luke refers to a series of lawsuits and countersuits between the singer Kesha Rose Sebert (Kesha) and the music producer Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald. Sebert filed a civil suit against Gottwald in October 2014 for infliction of emotional distress, sex-based hate crimes and employment discrimination. Gottwald filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court in which he sued Sebert and her mother, Rosemary Patricia "Pebe" Sebert, for defamation and breach of contract.
Lenny Letter, also known as Lenny, was a weekly online feminist newsletter created by Lena Dunham and Jennifer Konner. Lenny also had a book imprint called Lenny Books on Random House. It was shut down in October 2018.
After a sexual assault or rape, victims are often subjected to scrutiny and, in some cases, mistreatment. Victims undergo medical examinations and are interviewed by police. If there is a criminal trial, victims suffer a loss of privacy, and their credibility may be challenged. Victims may also become the target of slut-shaming, abuse, social stigmatization, sexual slurs and cyberbullying. These factors, contributing to a rape culture, are among some of the reasons that may contribute up to 80% of all rapes going unreported in the U.S, according to a 2016 study done by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In August 1992, American filmmaker and actor Woody Allen was alleged by his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow, then aged seven, to have sexually molested her in the home of her adoptive mother, actress Mia Farrow, in Bridgewater, Connecticut. Allen has repeatedly denied the allegation.
Zinzi Clemmons is an American writer. She is known for her 2017 debut novel What We Lose.
Mute R. Kelly is a movement to have American singer R. Kelly convicted of sexual abuse and to end financial support for his career. The campaign was founded by Kenyette Barnes and Oronike Odeleye in July 2017, when Odeleye was informed Kelly was booked to perform at the Fulton County owned facility in Atlanta. Oronike stated, "Someone had to stand up for Black women, and if I wasn't willing to do my part — no matter how small — then I couldn't continue to complain. It's time for us to end this man's career. Enough is beyond enough."
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators is a 2019 book by the American journalist Ronan Farrow. He recounts the challenges he faced chasing the stories of Harvey Weinstein's decades of rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse of women and the case against him. Farrow argues that Weinstein was able to use Black Cube, a private Israeli intelligence service, to successfully pressure executives at NBC News to kill the story there, leading him to take it to The New Yorker, where it was published and helped spark the international #MeToo movement exposing sexual abuse, mostly of women, in many industries.
Jamie Elizabeth Peck is an American writer and a podcaster. She currently co-hosts the Everybody Loves Communism podcast, and she previously produced and contributed to The Majority Report with Sam Seder and the Antifada podcast.