For many people, it will have been the fall of a myth. Lena Dunham, creator, screenwriter, and star of Girls, has announced that she has become a mother through surrogacy. The American actress, who has become one of the faces associated with contemporary feminism due to her role as Hannah Horvath and the discourse developed over the years around women and their bodies, has shared the process in the first person in Vogue.
Dunham and her husband, musician Luis Felber, have welcomed a girl whose name they have not made public. In the article published by the magazine, the actress explains how she experienced the journey to motherhood and the bond she established with the woman who carried her daughter. The account, far from being limited to announcing the birth, goes into details about the pregnancy, the relationship with the surrogate, and the moment of delivery.
The actress recounts that, after her fertility issues, she met the woman who would end up being the surrogate for her daughter. Dunham shares that she expected to experience feelings of jealousy upon seeing her make possible what she could not do herself, but she assures that those feelings did not arise and that she developed a relationship of admiration and affection towards her.
The text dedicates a good part of its narrative to the wait for the birth and the preparations to welcome the girl. Dunham also describes the moment of delivery and her first encounter with her daughter, presented as the culmination of a process that the writer had lived with uncertainty and expectation.
Precisely that way of narrating the experience is one of the elements that has provoked criticism. The harshest reactions question whether a woman who has been identified for years with feminist positions can present surrogacy from such a positive perspective.
Social media turns to 'The Handmaid's Tale'
One of the public figures who has criticized the decision has been director Chloe Wallace, who has publicly expressed her "deep sadness" and "total disagreement" with Dunham's decision. Her criticism raises the question of whether surrogacy can be considered compatible with certain conceptions of feminism, especially when it involves another woman carrying the pregnancy for the future parents.
Among the reactions that the announcement has provoked, there is also a reference to The Handmaid's Tale, the novel by Margaret Atwood and its subsequent television adaptation. Some users on X have used the dystopia as a comparison to question Dunham's account of surrogacy.
One of the criticisms spread on social media precisely points out that the text published by Dunham could be confused with a scene from Atwood's fiction, before emphasizing that it is a real account written by the actress herself. The comparison has thus become one of the most repeated elements of the negative reactions to the announcement.