Ashley Judd and her “Missing” face…
When Ashley Judd appeared on a Canadian talk show last month to promote her new TV series Missing (now on M-Net) with her beautiful face noticably more puffy than usual, the blogosphere lit up with bitchy reports of the plastic surgery she was supposed to have had done, and how she should be careful about getting so “fat” or her husband would start looking for another wife.
No, seriously.
Now Ms Judd hits back with a lengthy piece in The Daily Beast. Even though she normally doesn’t read what is written about her, Ashley writes, because “I hold that it is none of my business what people think of me”, she took issue with this particular outrage because this conversation, she says, “was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture endure every day”.
“Patriarchy is not men,” she argues. “Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it.”
Amen, sister.
Team Judd has explained that her puffy face on that particular day was due to several courses of cortisone treatment for an ugly sinus infection and also, Ashley admits cheerfully, because she went from her usual size 2-4 to a 6-8 (from a size 4-6 to 8-10 here in S.A.) “after a lazy six months of not exercising”.
For the record, here is Ashley with her beautiful 43-year-old face watching a basketball game just last Monday…
