Culture

Lena Dunham Is Launching A Feminist Newsletter That Will Be Like “Rookie’s Big Sister”

'Lenny' is a special little nook of the internet for every type of person who's into radical politics and Rihanna.

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Despite already being a hugely successful writer, director, and impromptu supermodel who maybe kind of sort of looks like a “drug addicted secretary”, Lena Dunham is now trying her sickeningly talented hand at publishing. Announced this morning, she and Girls showrunner Jenni Konner will be launching a feminist newsletter called Lenny.

How do we know it’s feminist? It literally features a picture of Dunham as Rosie the Riveter.

According to its website, the project will focus on “feminism, style, health, politics, friendship and everything else”, but Dunham has better fleshed out the idea in a long interview with Buzzfeed. “[Lenny’s for] an army of like-minded intellectually curious women and the people who love them,” she said. “People who want to talk about radical politics but also want to talk about fashion and also want to talk about Rihanna — [people who] understand that all of those things can be happening at the same time.”

Of course, this convergence of serious feminist issues and pop culture is something Dunham’s is now famous for. Remember that time she did the robot in a onesie with Lil Jon in an effort to raise awareness about the midterm election reproductive rights? Yeah. That was a thing.

Now, instead of tackling those ideas through existing platforms that rely on viral content and disparate audiences, she’s creating her own slightly more insular alternative. Each week Lenny will be delivering news, ideas and links direct to the inboxes of subscribers like a personal letter. But, as Dunham told The Cutit won’t just be for “straight, white cisgender women”. “We’re not making any assumptions about your identity,” she said. “We’re making the assumption that you’re passionate and you care about other people’s emotions and style and you just want to live a more connected life.”

This is backed up by the diverse and talented staff involved with the project. While Dunham and Konner will both be heavily involved Lenny’s production, its core editorial staff will also include Jessica Grose, Laia Garcia, and Doreen St Felix who come from previous publications such as Jezebel, Slate, Rookie, The Hairpin, and Pitchfork — where St Felix recently penned the definitive breakdown of Rihanna’s ‘BBHMM’ and “moneyed black girls” in pop culture. With this and the focus on intersectional feminism at large, it’s clear that Dunham’s pretty keen to address and overcome the ongoing criticism for her near-exclusive focus on the lives of white, middle-class women.

“The internet feminism conversation can be very circular and limiting and exclusive,” Grose, the editor-in-chief, told Buzzfeed. “It saddens me to see that a lot of the competition is about saying ‘you’re not feminist enough’: trying to kick people out of feminism rather than bring them in. And Lenny is an opportunity to say, ‘There are many different types of feminisms, and we can work together.’”

She then went on to describe it as “Rookie‘s big sister” or “Goop meets Grantland”. For context: the former just published a comprehensive and step-by-step guide to yawning inspired by a dinner Gwenyth Paltrow had with her yogi friend, and the latter opted for a long-form feature about how female country musicians are suffering from the harsh commercial realities of the contemporary music industry.

If that’s any indication, this thing really could be diverse.

Sign up for Lenny here.