A Sense of Doubt blog post #1818 - Ashley Judd
I admire Ashley Judd immensely. I find her to be amazing and talented.
I decided to check out what she's been doing, what her social media presence is, and how she uses it.
Her activism is so inspiring. But, also, sadly, the horrible hate crimes and harassment she has suffered is despicable. There are some hateful people out there, many of whom (most?) are men. Makes me ashamed to be one. All I can do is try to be a good one.
Here's some of what I found. Perhaps this is a part one devoted to the incredible Ms. Judd.
https://twitter.com/AshleyJudd
http://ashleyjudd.com/
Actress Ashley Judd has starred in such films as 'Kiss the Girls,' 'Double Jeopardy' and 'Divergent.' She is also the daughter and sister of the country music duo the Judds. Growing up in Kentucky, Ashley Judd's family was dirt-poor without the comforts of electricity, running water, or a telephone. While mom Naomi and sister Wynonna sang on the front porch, Ashley generally engrossed herself in her books, pretending to be various characters. Ashley studied French at the University of Kentucky, where she graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1990. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, she marched straight into an agency and came out signed. After her first bit part in Kuffs she landed a starring role in Ruby in Paradise , a coming-of-age film that won the Grand Jury Prize (along with Public Access) at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival; Ashley also earned an Independent Spirit Award for her portrayal of the title character. In the summer of 1996, she appeared in A Time to Kill , opposite Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughey. Later that year, she starred opposite Luke Perry in Normal Life, for which she received critical acclaim. Also in 1996, Ashley received an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Norma Jean in HBO's Norma Jean and Marilyn. With solid supporting performances in good movies Smoke, Heat and A Time to Kill , her big-screen profile grew ever larger in 1997, with a starring turn opposite Morgan Freeman in the Kiss The Girls , and one opposite Vince Vaughn in The Locusts. Ashley made her debut theater performance in the Naked Angel's production of Busted, directed by Timothy Hutton. She then went on to star as Madge on Broadway in William Inge's Pulitzer Prize winning play, Picnic, at the Roundabout Theater Company while simultaneously filming a supporting role in Smoke, portraying the daughter of Harvey Keitel and Stockard Channing. Ashley works non-stop, with starring roles in films such as Someone Like You (2001), Twisted (2004), Dolphin Tale (2011), Allegiant (2016), and A Dog's Way Home (2019), to name a few. Ashley is also well-known for exposing Harvey Weinstein in an interview with The New York Times published on Oct. 5, 2017. After she shed light on his sexual exploitation of numerous actresses, including herself, it began a movement to expose all sexual predators in Hollywood. She was marrried to Dario Franchitti, a race car driver, but they divorced in 2013.
Oct 27, 2017
ABC News
The actress and activist alleges that Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed her in a hotel room in the late '90s, and hopes sharing her story helps others.
https://www.today.com/video/ashley-judd-on-coming-forward-with-weinstein-story-it-was-time-68503621941
Ashley Judd on coming forward with Weinstein story: ‘It was time’
The 3rd hour of TODAY welcomes New York Times journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor as they discuss “She Said,” their new book recounting their bombshell 2017 report revealing Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct. They’re joined by Ashley Judd, the first Hollywood star to speak about Weinstein on the record. “I knew it was all going to be OK,” Judd says. “It was time.”
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/05/233745/ashley-judd-harvey-weinstein-settlement-civil-suit-objections
https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/ashley-judd
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/03/ashley-judd-pens-powerful-essay-explaining-why-shes-fighting-back-on-social-media
https://www.mic.com/articles/113226/forget-your-team-your-online-violence-toward-girls-and-women-is-what-can-kiss-my-ass
How online abuse of women has spiraled out of control https://t.co/sHCTdj0jsC— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) August 9, 2017
Girls should be students, not sex and labor slave brides. Go, Chief Theresa Kachindamoto! https://t.co/p8k4Zc42IB— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) December 26, 2019
"Our male-dominated culture has ignored, silenced and oppressed women for centuries." - @UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres.— UN Women (@UN_Women) December 25, 2019
Let's challenge the historic injustices until we end the patriarchy once & for all. pic.twitter.com/Jr2tqrJeFb
What Harvey Weinstein has said in the @nypost on #PageSix is a classic example of DARVO.— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) December 17, 2019
Denying. Attacking. Reversing. Victim. Order.
It is a predatorial strategy that seeks to shift attention away from his criminal behavior and put his toxic shame onto survivor victims.
When she was 22 and barely spoke English, model @AmbraBattilana faced off against one of the most powerful men in Hollywood while wearing a police wire. What happened next upended her life. Subscribe to the #CatchAndKill Podcast to hear her story: https://t.co/649mmaiRam pic.twitter.com/es1sKXAaIE— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) December 12, 2019
Sexual violence against children is an epidemic and happens in every country in the world. I am deeply grateful to Together for Girls for their indefatigable work. Take a look at their tool kit that can be assisted to various settings. https://t.co/cxGe8tkcPC— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) December 11, 2019
Thank you for the lovely honor. May it serve to remember all the women worldwide with whom I have grieved, laughed, cooked, danced, laughed, marched, helped hands, lived, and loved. @UNFPA https://t.co/ns678hH9F7— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) December 10, 2019
https://www.mic.com/articles/113226/forget-your-team-your-online-violence-toward-girls-and-women-is-what-can-kiss-my-ass
During a conference championship game on Sunday, I posted a
comment to Twitter that some found unsportsmanlike. I didn't much care for
three players bleeding on the court, and I tweeted that the opponent was
"playing dirty & can kiss my team's free throw making a—." The
volume of hatred that exploded at me in response was staggering.
I routinely cope with tweets that
sexualize, objectify, insult, degrade and even physically threaten me. I have
already — recently, in fact — looked into what is legally actionable in light
of such abuse, and have supplied Twitter with scores of reports about the
horrifying content on its platform. But this particular tsunami of gender-based
violence and misogyny flooding my Twitter feed was overwhelming.
Tweets rolled in, calling me a
cunt, a whore or a bitch, or telling me to suck a two-inch dick. Some even
threatened rape, or "anal anal anal."
I deleted my original tweet after
the game, before all hell broke loose, to make amends for any genuine offense I
may have committed by describing play as "dirty." (Of course, other
people, including my uncle who is a chaplain, also expressed fear that the
athletes would be hurt badly. But my uncle wasn't told he was a smelly pussy.
He wasn't spared because of his profession; being a male sports fan is his
immunity from abuse.)
I love March Madness so much that
even now, what I really want to talk about is how Sunday's strategy did
not, in fact, work. I really want to talk about a deeply distressing dream I recently
had that UConn beat us in the finals, in which we scored a scant 49 points, not
to mention the oddity of why my awful dream featured UConn and not Wisconsin.
Instead, I must, as a woman who was once a girl, as someone who uses the
Internet, as a citizen of the world, address personally, spiritually, publicly
and even legally, the ripe dangers that invariably accompany being a woman and
having an opinion about sports or, frankly, anything else.
What happened to me is the
devastating social norm experienced by millions of girls and women on the
Internet. Online harassers use the slightest excuse (or no excuse at all) to
dismember our personhood. My tweet was simply the convenient delivery system
for a rage toward women that lurks perpetually. I know this experience is
universal, though I'll describe specifically what happened to me.
I read in vivid language the
various ways, humiliating and violent, in which my genitals, vaginal and anal,
should be violated, shamed, exploited and dominated. Either the writer was
going to do these things to me, or they were what I deserved. My intellect was
insulted: I was called stupid, an idiot. My age, appearance and body were
attacked. Even my family was thrown into the mix: Someone wrote that my
"grandmother is creepy."
As I began on Twitter to identify
and push back against this toxicity and abuse, I faced the standard bashing
anyone (girl or boy, woman or man) experiences when objecting to and taking
action against misogyny. For example:
@AshleyJudd If freedom is too difficult for you, there are other places you can go. #LiveFreeOrDie #HurtfulWordsPolice— Superfluity5 (@Superfluity5) March 18, 2015
Word. @JillAMackie: Women Can't Talk About Sports on the Net w/out Receiving Threats of Sexual Violence http://t.co/bwFJOtuVOs - @MicNews— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) March 17, 2015
And last: "I watched Simon Birch. Lousy movie,
but I got to see Ashley Judd die."
The themes are predictable: I
brought it on myself. I deserved it. I'm whiny. I'm no fun. I can't take a
joke. There are more serious issues in the world. The Internet space isn't
real, and doesn't deserve validity and attention as a place where people are
abused and suffer. Grow thicker skin, sweetheart. I'm famous. It's part of my
job description.
The themes embedded in this particular incident reflect the universal ways we
talk about girls and women. When they are violated, we ask, why was she wearing
that? What was she doing in that neighborhood? What time was it? Had she been
drinking?
Luckily, others have have helped
identify and dismantle the twisted logic of this entire incident:
@daniellelliot Tell whole @AshleyJudd story No place for threats of violence, but there's a reason she deleted tweets. she was wrong— Matthew Spence (@mattspence81) March 18, 2015
Glad @ashleyjudd stood up against #genderviolence but some mock her, citing "bigger problems". Violence/hate of any kind, its interconnected— Alexandra Ostrow (@AlexandraOstrow) March 18, 2015
@TomAdelsbach @EdPuskas_Vindy @TanyaTales @Film_CrewWB @AshleyJudd Mr. Head, what exactly is your beef here? That she is defending herself?— (((Kath Kaufman))) (@coachkitty) March 18, 2015
@daniellelliot @AshleyJudd @tylerholland33 there is a huge difference between banter and threats/shaming. #misogyny #RefuseToBeSilent— CatSlaveMomma (@catslavemomma) March 18, 2015
I'll close with sharing why I had, before this past Sunday,
already begun to research what legal actions to take against gender-based
violence on Twitter.
I am a survivor of sexual assault,
rape and incest. I am greatly blessed that in 2006, other thriving survivors
introduced me to recovery. I seized it. My own willingness, partnered with a
simple kit of tools, has empowered me to take the essential odyssey from
undefended and vulnerable victim to empowered survivor. Today, nine years into
my recovery, I can go farther and say my "story" is not "my
story." It is something a Higher Power (spirituality, for me, has been
vital in this healing) uses to allow me the grace and privilege of helping
others who are still hurting, and perhaps to offer a piece of education,
awareness and action to our world.
The summer of 1984 was tough for
me. I experienced two rapes by an adult and systematic molestation from another
adult, who also had another man in the room watching (I now understand this was
to ensure he had a witness, in order to undermine me in the event I tried to
report the incident). I have done purgative, cathartic work on those particular
acts of violence. The nature of recovering from trauma is that it can be
ongoing, with deeper levels of healing and freedom coming with indefatigable
persistence to keep chipping away at it.
This is one of the many reasons why
I believe profound dedication to self-care is essential to feminist social
justice work. I knew exactly where to go and what to do. My mentor was
available. We immediately scheduled experiential therapy; I thus did not have
to go to the sexual assault center for triage. But let me tell you: I am
exactly like every other survivor, and the sexual assault centers of our
country are for me, just as they are for all of us.
Supported by friends and a
brilliant psychologist, my therapy was astonishing, as all such healing work
is. I felt like I had the chance to finally speak, fight and grieve, and be
consoled and comforted. But then, on literally the very next day, I received a
disturbing tweet with a close-up photograph of my face behind text that read,
"I can't wait to cum all over your face and in your mouth."
The timing was canny, and I knew it
was a crime. It was time to call the police, and to say to the Twittersphere,
no more.
I've spent valuable March Madness
time writing this. I have 6 versus 11 seed upsets to pick and opponents to
scout. So for now, I am handing it back over to those of you who are unafraid
to speak out against abuse like I have faced, and those of you who are
righteous allies and intervening bystanders. You're on it. Keep at it — on the
Internet, at home, at work and in your hearts, where the courage to tackle this
may fundamentally lie. We have much to discuss, and much action to take. Join
me.
Ashley Judd
is a University of Kentucky and Harvard Kennedy School graduate. Her paper,
"Gender Violence: Law and Social Justice" was awarded the Dean's
Scholar Award at Harvard Law School. Her schools are seeded 1 and 13 in the
NCAA Men's Tournament.
This ESQUIRE cover is my favorite picture of Ashley Judd.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2002.09 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1681 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2002.09 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1681 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
No comments:
Post a Comment