White Men Can't Understand

About

"White Men Can't Understand" is an image macro series mocking a statement uttered by actress Lena Dunham during a 2016 interview^[6] regarding attacks on Hillary Clinton during him presidential campaign.

Origin

On April 9th, 2016, Page Six^[1] published an interview with Dunham titled "Lena Dunham reaffirms her love for Hillary," in which she claimed other white male presidential candidates were unable to understand what it was like to be attacked as a woman.

“The other candidates are white men and they cannot understand, even if they can understand it intellectually . . . for what it’s like to be under that kind of attack, and I’m so impressed by the way she continues to soldier forth.”

On April 26th, 2017, the Turning Point USA Twitter feed posted a picture of Dunham captioned with "White men can't understand what it's like to be under attack," followed by a picture of an injured man wearing a "Make America Great Again" shirt (shown below).^[3]

Spread

On May 14th, 2017, Redditor Miichaelstevens posted the same Dunham image followed by a photograph of United States military carrying a wounded soldier (shown below, left). Within five months, the post gathered upwards of 4,900 points (83% upvoted) and 290 comments on /r/MensRights.^[4] On June 18th, Dunham reposted a version of the image with the message "Spam 'White Men Are Gods' On Her Racist Page" to Instagram,^[5] adding "I guarantee your wives hate you" (shown below, right).

On October 20th, 2017, Redditor pslessard followed by a picture of the Normandy landings in World War II (shown below, left). Within 24 hours, the post gained over 29,700 points (69% upvoted) and 1,200 comments. That day, several other variations of the image macro reached the frontpage of /r/dankmemes (shown below, middle, right).

Search Interest

External References