Lena Dunham

Much of Girls so far has dealt with romantic relationships. But in last night's episode, "Bad Friend," the drama centered on the hard work of handling friendships. Namely, best friendships. The tension that has been simmering between Hannah and Marnie since the beginning of this season finally exploded in a coke-and-bad-sex-with-a-terrible-artist-fueled showdown. 

In fictional TV narratives, job interviews and negotiations are opportunities for farce. Especially when the manager is male and his subordinate is female, TV writers grab the opportunity to intersect career milestones with heterosexual complications. But when labor economics converge with gender in the real world, the result is far from uproarious.

If last week’s season premiere was the leadup to the inevitable conversation about race that Girls has needed, last night's episode, “I Get Ideas,” finally delivered, with mixed results.

When Girls premiered last year, so many pop culture–loving feminists had pinned hopes on the show that it disappointment was almost inevitable. In a raft of post–Season 1 interviews, Dunham hinted that many critiques of the show—chief among them the issue of its attitude toward race—would be addressed in Season two.

Though there's been a lot of talk of girl power on TV, there's not nearly enough gender parity behind the scenes of the small screen.

From coffee shops to reception desks, from retail counters to runways, how do TV depictions of young women at work ring true, and how do they fall short?

Lena Dunham tells Esquire she doesn't listen to the haters, including those who say she's whitewashing Brooklyn.

Emily Nussbaum's cover story for the current issue of New York magazine, "It's Different for Girls," is about how Lena Dunham's hotly anticipated new HBO series is, well, different. As much as an HBO show about white 20-somethings in New York can be different, anyway. And it's a great profile piece for anyone interested in the show (which I am), as it gives some insight into how it's being made and how Dunham is operating as the show's creator and star. What I don't understand, though, is how this profile inspired this cover: