Ashley Judd Strikes Back at Media Speculation about her Puffy Face

I’ve always found Ashley Judd beautiful.

I guess she’s my type.

Turns out, she’s smart and spunky in addition to beautiful. The Daily Beast has a piece written by Judd as she unabashedly takes to task the giant, soul-sucking media universe that, collectively, thrashed her for having a puffy face. People speculated that she was sick, that she’d had work done, that she was fat (although she’s only a size 8). She turns 44 on the 19th. (Happy Birthday, Ashley!)

Ashley’s not having that. The whole thing is worth a read, but here’s the powerful conclusion:

It doesn’t actually matter if we are aging naturally, or resorting to surgical assistance. We experience brutal criticism. The dialogue is constructed so that our bodies are a source of speculation, ridicule, and invalidation, as if they belong to others—and in my case, to the actual public.

If this conversation about me is going to be had, I will do my part to insist that it is a feminist one, because it has been misogynistic from the start. Who makes the fantastic leap from being sick, or gaining some weight over the winter, to a conclusion of plastic surgery? Our culture, that’s who. The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood. It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings. Join in—and help change—the Conversation.

via Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation Over Her ‘Puffy’ Appearance – The Daily Beast.

photo: Richard Drew via The Daily Beast