Meanwhile...

Ashley Judd Says True Things

by Susana Polo | 3:32 pm, April 10th, 2012

I hope the sharing of my thoughts can generate a new conversation: Why was a puffy face cause for such a conversation in the first place? How, and why, did people participate? If not in the conversation about me, in parallel ones about women in your sphere? What is the gloating about? What is the condemnation about? What is the self-righteous alleged “all knowing” stance of the media about? How does this symbolize constraints on girls and women, and encroach on our right to be simply as we are, at any given moment? How can we as individuals in our private lives make adjustments that support us in shedding unconscious actions, internalized beliefs, and fears about our worthiness, that perpetuate such meanness? What can we do as families, as groups of friends? Is what girls and women can do different from what boys and men can do? What does this have to do with how women are treated in the workplace? – Ashley Judd, talking about the recent media storm over her appearance, which naturally included accusations of plastic surgery, implications of her needing plastic surgery, implications that she could not look like she does (i.e., good) without plastic surgery, implications that her (hypothetical) plastic surgery had ruined her looks, implications that her husband would now cheat on her because of her looks (i.e., bad), and that her looks were terrible in a acting role in which her character would, logically, have looked terrible.

Read the entire, incredible article at The Daily Beast.

TAGS: feminism

Anonymous

What is the self-righteous alleged “all knowing” stance of the media about?

I support Judd’s sentiments wholeheartedly, but I would also suggest that in these discussions it’s important to identify more specific sources for problematic images than “the media.” Which isn’t to absolve, say, Vogue or the like, but the standards she is rightly decrying are also produced by the industries – fashion, film, television, etc. – that focus on meeting the cis-hetero Male Gaze (a privilege which I recognize and oppose), and in which she has participated. This doesn’t devalue her column, but in cases like these, shooting the messenger is the first step in a larger conversation, which I hope she can be a part of, as well.
Carmen Sandiego

I loved this particular excerpt: “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.”