“That Experience Of Extensive Patriarchal Wounding Shaped My Neural Anatomy.”

I know we’ve all reached the up with which we cannot put when it comes to Ashley Judd and her ridiculously pretentious way of speaking, but YOU GUYS.  I had to tell you about this.

A new book by Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday called 200 Women, features (surprise!) 200 women who were asked what matters most to them, and what they would like to change about the world.  They chose “women of influence” and unfortunately, whether or not we like it, Ashley Judd is considered one of those by people who don’t know any better.

Ashley’s answer to the question is below, as are my thoughts about her answer, because you know I have them, what with me loathing her with the fury of a billion suns and whatnot.

My mother was pregnant with me at the time of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy – those events imprinted on her and, therefore, on me. More than anything, though, what has formed the core of both my pain and my resilience is experiencing sexual abuse in early childhood.

So yeah.  About that.  Ashley Judd was born on April 19, 1968.  So while it’s true that her mom was pregnant with her at the time of MLK’s assassination on April 4 of that same year, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on June 6 of 1968, when Ashley Judd was a few months old.  I suppose it’s possible that those two assassinations “imprinted” on Naomi Judd (whatever that means), but you’d have to be some kind of pseudo-science wackjob to think that those events imprinted on you in the womb or in the first few months of your life.

Oh wait.

That experience of extensive patriarchal wounding shaped my neural anatomy.

I’m no neurologist, but neither is Ashley Judd, and this statement is completely absurd.  She is Actually Suggesting that her nervous system’s very make-up was shaped by assassinations that she describes as “extensive patriarchal wounding.”

And people buy this crap.  They listen to her say stuff like that, and they’re all, “OMG she’s so amazing and insightful and intelligent!” instead of calling her out on her enormous piles of stinking bullsh*t.

I have spent a good deal of my life either unconsciously affected, or bewildered by my inability to let go of the pain. I’d been using yoga, meditation and prayer as modalities to cope with the abuse, but the power to confront what happened came through my sister. She had been seeking help for an eating disorder and, when I showed up to a family week, her treatment team took one look at me and recommended a 12-step programme. I thought they were wrong to suggest it, but I was willing to do anything to change, and I’m glad I did. Through professional help, I’ve become a general badass.

My my my.  Someone thinks an awful lot of someone, doesn’t someone?

It can be abusive to highlight a problem without also underscoring a solution, so I am very thankful that today, when I talk about being a survivor of adolescent and adult rape, and of all kinds of gender wounding, I do so from a position of empowerment. If I could change one thing in the world today, it would be to change the prevailing global culture of sexual exploitation and sexual entitlement.

Ashley is now updating her account of her Harvey Weinstein story to insist that she has been talking about it non-stop for 20 years, and she has taken to scolding MEN for not doing more to draw attention to the problem of sexual harassment in Hollywood.  She told her dad about her encounter right after it occurred.  She told multiple friends, she says.

None of that, of course, explains why she didn’t do the one thing she could have done to actually have an impact, and that’s tell the media, even though she had plenty of opportunity and access.  Nope – instead, she went on to make two movies for Harvey Weinstein.

Huh.

In a Facebook live session she recently did with Nick Kristoff, she said, and I quote, “If we don’t speak up, we’re complicit.  And I think men disrupting behavior when other boys and men are doing it is really important.”

Meanwhile, she apparently didn’t wanna reveal Weinstein’s name for two decades, because…she had two more movies to make with him first?  Mmmkay.

Getting really tired of feminists complaining about men not rescuing them from situations and at the same time demanding to be seen as equals.  Either you’re a damsel in distress or you’re a strong independent woman who don’t need no man.  PICK ONE.

To borrow Ashley Judd’s unique sense of preposition order, could someone please hand me a spoon, with which I may gag myself?