How come only the boys on Girls grow up?

I’m a big fan of Girls. I caught on to Lena Dunham’s HBO series late, binged my way through the first few seasons, and it now has the distinction of being the only show I watch in real time, as new episodes come out every Sunday. I liked it because it was fun and well-written and because the characters rang true. I liked that, unlike the characters on other shows I won’t mention, this coed bunch of spoiled Millennial brats actually got called out on their bullshit. But somewhere around the third season, I noticed more and more it was the men calling the women on their bullshit (often eloquently, and with good reason) and rarely the other way around.

As the seasons roll by, this dynamic has corresponded to a puzzling trend: the show’s male supporting characters are maturing. The four female leads are doing the opposite.

Here’s a quick roundup: Ray, once a misanthrope with no ambition or permanent address, is now managing his own business and running for public office (although what happened with that whole thing I’m not sure). He’s also shown a softer side, doggedly defending the women who so relentlessly screw him over. Adam started out as a reclusive, compulsive man-child whose dirty talk was laced with allusions to pedophilia. Now he’s enlightened, generous, evolved. Elijah started out dating a rich older man, perfectly comfortable “being Wendi Deng.” Now he’s backing away from a fling with a celebrity because he knows he deserves more respect. Would the old Elijah have a moments’ hesitation? I think not.

As for the eponymous girls: the two big recent leaps into adulthood – Marnie’s marriage and Shoshanna’s career, have come to screeching halts. Jessa seems to have found a path to relative stability, but has shut out her friends and become financially reliant on a boyfriend in the process. And Hannah is in the middle of some bizarre sociopathic freefall that I don’t even know where to begin with. This growing divide only makes the dynamic of bad female behavior tempered by a male voice of reason more and more pronounced, and it reached a fever pitch this week.

The episode “Homeward Bound” starts with Hannah hightailing it out of a camper and demanding that Fran (the patron saint of male reasonableness) leave her at a truck stop. When he finally relented, called her selfish and rude, and granted her wish, I cheered him on. Hannah then calls her female friends for help. No dice, they’re too busy being selfish and rude. Only Ray is enough of a friend to come and rescue her. And she responds by forcing road head on him, causing him to crash his car, refusing to apologize, and then abandoning him to hop in a stranger’s car. It’s hard to imagine Season 1 Hannah being that awful. And it’s hard to imagine Season 1 Ray accepting it. But that is the trajectory that both characters have been on.  

Elsewhere in Girls-world, we have Shoshanna running in to her ex-boyfriend - another one-dimensionally decent dude - at a sushi restaurant, where he explains to her (because apparently she really didn’t know) why it is reprehensible to apply for government assistance while still indulging in pricey sushi lunches. We have Caroline abandoning her partner and baby. We have Adam stepping in to take care of his niece, to Jessa's apparent chagrin. When Jessa uncharacteristically freaks over some spit-up, she hands the infant off to Adam, and demands his help. Adam, in stone-faced disapproval, says “You're an adult. She's a baby. Why do you need more help than a baby?” The camera cuts to Jessa, admonished and without a comeback. 

The episode is absolutely chock full of women being entitled, petulant, and naïve, and men counseling them on how reasonable adults behave.  

There’s this insidious notion running through TV and movies that female characters have to be likeable in order to be compelling. Lena Dunham has always said a fearless “fuck you” to this idea, and I applaud her for that. I also applaud her for flipping the tired old trope of the perfect, beautiful woman with endless patience for the unworthy, flawed man in her life. But at this point in Girls, that role-reversal is starting to feel like an overcorrect. Why is all the emotional support on this show handed down from a man? Why, when the women try to turn to each other for comfort and guidance, does it almost always devolve into brush-offs and accusations? Why, at this point, does all the wisdom on the show come from a male voice? I’m not saying I have to like these women. I’m not saying they have to start behaving themselves, or dedicating their energy to saving the men in their lives. I’m just asking for some indication that as the years have passed, they’ve gained a little wisdom all their own. 

I'm with Kim on this one

International Women’s Day is an annual celebration of womens' social, political and economic achievements. Naturally, Kim Kardashian recognized this day by posting a nude selfie on Instagram. We should expect nothing less of Kim. This is her role, the job we have all collectively assigned her and she is going to keep doing it until we stop watching. It was just Kim being Kim, which is exactly what she gets paid (obscene amounts) to do.

To be clear: I am no great fan of Kim Kardashian. For all her time in the limelight, she hasn’t said much of consequence. She’s mostly used her own tautological celebrity as a platform to promote herself and her friends. Granted, she’s built herself into a powerful and lucrative brand. But I think that says more about her mother’s ruthless marketing chops and society’s weird priorities than it does about Kim’s business acumen. Her continued relevancy is largely the result of her association with other celebrities: OJ Simpson, Paris Hilton, Ray J, and now Caitlyn Jenner, Kendall Jenner, Kanye West. She’s also very beautiful. But it’s my general feeling that someone who believes themselves to be the most interesting thing in the world is almost certainly a boring person, and Kim is a shining, shellacked example of that.

So it’s not like I was tearfully slow clapping her nude selfies last week. But I was dismayed by the backlash they got. It came from some unexpected places: Chloe Grace Moretz (one of the most exciting young actresses around right now) tweeted “I truly hope you realize how important setting goals are for young women, teaching them we have so much more to offer than just our bodies.” Pink, who I admire, also took to Twitter encouraging women to rely on their brains and talent, “It may not ever bring you as much ‘attention’ or bank notes as using your body, your sex, your tits and asses, but women like you don’t need that kind of ‘attention.’”. And Piers Morgan decided that his thoughts on this topic were so essential they merited a whole Daily Mail article. He wrote:

“I found it all a bit depressing, Kim’s 35 now, and the mother of two very young children. She still looks fantastic, and of course has every right to post as many naked pictures as she likes. It’s her body, her life. But it’s hard to escape the creeping suspicion that this new frenzied and frankly rather desperate attempt to ‘break the internet’ is happening because other younger members of her family have been grabbing at all the scantily-clad attention recently, notably half-sister 20-year-old Kendall ‘Instagram Queen’ Jenner. Every super model, movie and pop sex symbol (with the exception of the increasingly grotesque and embarrassing Madonna) knows there comes a time when you have to hand the baton onto the next generation, however reluctantly.”

That was the passage that sent me shuffling grudgingly over to Team Kim. Pink and Moretz were arguing that women who promote their sexuality can’t be good role models (which I disagree with, but fine). Morgan is implying something far more abhorrent: once a woman is past a certain age, and a mother, her sexuality becomes something shameful. He seems to be saying that women only show their bodies out of insecurity. And that insecurity is acceptable in a childless 20-year-old. For a 35-year-old, it’s “frenzied and desperate.” In a 57-year-old, “Grotesque and embarrassing.” Piers Morgan, who is in his fifties himself, seems to suggest that “scantily clad” is exclusively the purview of current and recent teenagers. To sexualize a woman not yet old enough to legally drink is just standard industry practice. To sexualize a woman in her 30s is “depressing.”

I’m sure he’d prefer we interpret his words as something like “Come on, Kim, don’t advertise yourself as some bimbo sex object. You’re so much more than that!” But his subtext is much more sinister. Saying a woman shouldn’t post nude selfies because she’s married, or a mother, or over thirty, etc. is akin to archaic religious laws exerting control over women by insisting they dress in accordance with their sexual or marital status. In this system, the patriarchy decides when a woman becomes desirable, when she stops being desirable, and when her desirability belongs to her husband. Which may seem like an extreme comparison, but where else did Piers Morgan get the idea that he has the right to make sweeping claims about when women must “pass the baton”?

In conclusion, do I love that Kim Kardashian celebrated International Women’s Day by celebrating herself? No. But I will defend to the death her right to do it.     

Why am I not more excited about Hillary?

In the never-ending clown show of the 2016 primary race, certain observations are frequently rammed down our throats (as Marco Rubio would say twice in a row). Chief among them on the left is the reminder that Bernie Sanders – a 74-year-old curmudgeon who can’t pronounce “Snapchat” correctly – has lit a fire under the nation’s youth. This is a big deal. Young people are far less likely to vote than their older counterparts. Conventional wisdom is that they’re lazy cynics who take their civil liberties for granted. So if they don’t have a candidate that they truly believe in, they’ll probably just Netflix and chill on election day.

I’m 27, which means I’m young enough to be lumped in with this elusive “young voter” crowd. But I’m also old enough to have voted for Obama in 2008, which I did. I was totally swept up in the Shepard Fairey HOPE momentum. I stood in the rain for hours on my birthday to cast my vote. The night he was elected, people set off fireworks and danced in the street. I cried watching his acceptance speech. My ultra-liberal college campus held a spontaneous dance party. Today Bernie Sanders - sincere, anti-establishment, and unapologetically pissed off - is getting that same treatment. And once again Hillary has been pushed to the sidelines (if not downright vilified) by young liberals.

There are plenty of explanations for why Hillary Clinton still fails to inspire. There are legitimate reasons to distrust her and doubt her integrity. Her wealth and chumminess with Wall Street - while par for the course among politicians of her stature – look shitty in light of Sanders’ populist diatribes. And idealism will always make for better soundbites than pragmatism. But in 2007, Americans were clamoring for change, and Clinton reeked of more of the same. Now they’re clamoring harder, and Clinton reeks even worse.  Of course a handsome young mixed race first-term senator with a foreign-sounding name felt like a welcome departure. But when you’re standing next to an old white guy whose been in politics for three decades, and HE'S the breath of fresh air, you know you’ve got a problem connecting with people. 

In the Feb. 5 debate, Clinton challenged Bernie's assertion that she represented the establishment saying "Senator Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment."  It wasn't convincing. Which in a way is weird. Because the first female president SHOULD feel groundbreaking, should feel like sticking it to the (literal) man, should be a big fucking deal. So why don’t I, as an American woman, feel impassioned and energized at the prospect of a vagina-having commander in chief?

Clinton de-emphasized her gender when she campaigned against Obama. That was deemed a mistake, and she’s tried to make more of it this time around, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Is this because Clinton, after a lifetime of trying to be taken seriously in a man’s world, is such an establishment figure that her gender doesn't even read anymore ? Or are we reaching a point where gender inequality simply doesn’t feel like a pressing enough issue?

Madeleine Albright suggested recently that there was a special place in hell for women who didn't vote for Hillary. Gloria Steinem went so far as to suggest that naive Millennial gals were just emulating "the boys" with their Bernie support (gag, Gloria, gag). But these two groundbreaking women, baffled at why younger women fail to recognize the revolutionary shift that Hillary's election would represent, are the product of an earlier time. A time when sexism was rampant and blatant and visible everywhere you turned. For many, it still is. But even though I am a woman with strong feelings about gender equality, in 2007 I supported Obama in part because I felt it was more pressing and significant to elect the first black president than the first female one. I still feel that way. And while I’ve spent most of this election cycle assuming I would vote for Hillary in the primary, it’s always been a cerebral choice, not an emotional one. I feel like if elected she would continue the largely good work Obama has done on domestic policy, but that her experience as secretary of state would make her stronger on foreign policy. And maybe the fact that she’s kind of a shifty opportunist might actually help ease the congressional gridlock a little. And I don’t NEED to love the president, dammit, so long as they’re competent and on the right side of history. But my reasons for supporting Hillary really have nothing to do with her gender, and I bet she’d prefer it that way.