Let's stop beating each other up, shall we?

This morning I read a fabulous piece by Ashley Judd in the Daily Beast. I think you should read it, too.

Here's the short version, in case you're feeling lazy: Ashley Judd appeared on TV a few weeks back with a seemingly puffy face. Instantly, everyone in the universe freaked out, including actual news stations, who spent far more time than they needed to spend (read: any time at all) analyzing what was "wrong" with her. People accused her of having "work" done, and of using facial injections (i.e., Botox). In reality, the actress had been suffering from a serious sinus infection and had been taking antibiotics, and had consequently gained a small amount of weight.

In her essay, Judd attacks "the assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the general incessant objectification" that lead to the freak-out about her face. She does an excellent job of dissecting the media circus that erupted around her appearance, with various "experts" commenting on the supposed plastic surgery they "concluded" she must have had.

But she does a particularly good job calling out other women for fueling such viciousness:

"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."

Women are often active participants in reinforcing patriarchal norms. I caught myself being just as vicious last week, when Samantha Brick's infamous article "Why women hate me for being beautiful" went viral and began clogging up my newsfeed. In it, the author-- a sensationalist columnist known for her ridiculous, inflammatory remarks-- claims that other women hate her, ignore her, unfriend her, and distrust her because of her looks. And like many women I know, my first reaction was not to think, "Gee, what a nasty attitude," or "Man, she seems full of it," but rather to look at her photo and think, "Ugh, she's not pretty at all!"

Despite the fact that this woman has clearly been the victim of emotional domestic abuse (see here, here, and here), many of us had no pity for her. And many more of us felt instinctually, not interest in her high self-esteem or discomfort at her arrogance, but disgust that she dared to call herself beautiful when we felt she was really quite ordinary.

Your appearance is not your worth. Your weight, your youth, your zits, your makeup, your clothes-- those aren't who you are. You aren't a number on a scale. You aren't a certain candle count on a birthday cake. You aren't a size 2 dress or a perfect shade of red or your fine lines or your wrinkles or the bags under your eyes.

You are not your fucking khakis.