My high school English teacher used to write “too wordy” on everyone of my papers until I got the hint. I began crossing out the excess, and after doing so, I quickly realized my point could be expressed in one sentence alone. After reading Ashley Judd’s response to her “puffy face” critics, it’s clear that she should take some classes with my English teacher. Basically, she used some big words to say a whole lot of nothing. You can read an excerpt from her article below, but I’ll help her out with a brief summary of what she’s attempting to say. Here goes: “Stop commenting on my face. It’s mean.”
That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. 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. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times-I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.
Read Judd’s entire, long-winded post here.