AceShowbiz -

Lena Dunham interviewed Hillary Clinton for her new digital newsletter, Lenny. In an excerpt of the chat which will be fully unveiled to subscribers on Lenny's launch date September 29, the Democratic presidential candidate says she "absolutely" considers herself as a feminist and opens up on turning down Bill Clinton's marriage proposal twice.

"I'm always a little bit puzzled when any woman of whatever age, but particularly a young woman, says something like, 'Well, I believe in equal rights but I'm not a feminist'," Hillary said. "Well, a feminist is by definition someone who believes in equal rights. I'm hoping that people will not be afraid to say, that doesn't mean you hate men, it doesn't mean that you want to separate out the world, so you're not a part of ordinary life - that's not what it means at all! It just means that we believe women have the same rights as men."

The female politician also discussed her marriage to Bill Clinton, who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. "I was terrified about losing my identity and getting lost in the kind of wake of Bill's force-of-nature personality," she opened up.

"I actually turned him down twice when he asked me to marry him. He asked, we were in England on a trip after law school graduation. He asked me to marry him. I said, 'You know, I can't say yes. No, I can't do that right now.' And then, about a year later he asked me again, and I said 'No.' He said, 'Well, I'm not asking you again until you're ready to say yes.' "

Hillary went on, "And that was a large part of the ambivalence and the worry that I wouldn't necessarily know who I was or what I could do if I got married to someone who was going to chart a path that he was incredibly clear about."