Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation Over Her ‘Puffy’ Appearance - The Daily Beast

Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation Over Her ‘Puffy’ Appearance - The Daily Beast:

There was an article on Ace of Spades about this article where Ashley Judd blames 'the patriarchy' for gossip about her puffy face. The articles touch on the differences between men and women/feminism/anti-male bias and I wanted to talk about it.

Ashley Judd is a very good actress who's on a TV series I've never heard of and done a lot of movies. As of late, there's been a lot of articles on gossip sites about her appearance, from her having a puffy fact to having gained some weight. This has bothered her and she wants to shift 'The Conversation' (that's what she calls it, caps included) to how 'The Patriarchy' (her title/caps) is pushing this and why. It turns out that The Patriarchy is making snarky comments about women to destroy feminism and keep women down. She wants women to band together to ask The Patriarchy why they do this and make them stop because women should be united rather than divided due to snarky comments.

What a load of crap. Men, straight men at least*, don't read gossip magazines and don't watch gossip TV shows like Access ET Hollywood TMZ Edition. We don't gossip among ourselves and don't care about celebrity gossip unless it involves naked pictures. There's a blogger that regularly uses search terms for the most recent naked celebrity to increase his Google ranking (for a few celebrities, their name and naked pictures will reveal his blog as the first result). This is an aspect of how men and women deal with anger or social hierarchy differently. Men's anger tends to be acute and women's anger tends to be chronic. What I mean by this is that when men get angry at each other, there'll be an argument, possibly a shoving match and then they will either stop being friends or be okay with each other. Women tend to be more passive aggressive and will talk behind each other's backs and make snarky comments and gossip far beyond the capacity of a man to care about. An experience common to men in relationships is going home from a party and hearing all about a woman his girlfriend/wife hates and is jealous of. We're confused and a little bored but agree because we don't want that anger turned on us.

In the greater mediasphere, women and gay men** dominate the gossip agenda. They are the snarky ones talking about women's bodies and aging and weight and clothes and makeup and things we straight guys don't even know how to describe. Straight men's gossip is centered on whether we'd do her or not (the answer is usually yes). Beyond the gossip, you see women's magazines center on how women need to improve their hair/skin/makeup/body/fashion sense/bedroom skills/seductive skills. Guys aren't writing or editing those articles. We don't care. All of this reflects the importance that women place on their relative position in their social circles. Women are constantly evaluating their rank in the looks/fashion/financial/romance arenas and trying to talk down those they view as higher in the rankings. I'm not saying this is evil or maladaptive but it isn't straight guys that are doing it.

Here's a thought experiment; watch several hours of sitcoms and their commercials and count how many times the man in a couple is incompetent/mistaken/clueless and how often the woman is. Tim Allen made a career of being the grunting moron who, at the end of the episode, learned another Important Lesson about how to be less like a straight guy. If there was a Patriarchy, why would men allow themselves to almost always be the fool? If The Patriarchy is trying to keep women stupid, why would they allow women to graduate from college at a 3:2 ratio? Boys are less than half the population but more than 80% of children on Ritalin are boys. Why would divorce laws favor women if there was a Patriarchy in control?

I don't care about Ashley Judd's face, puffy or not, but to her I'm still sexist because I'm a man. She wasn't complaining about a Patriarchy promoting cute young things when she was a cute young thing. I doubt she's living on Ramen and rice. She grabbed the brass ring, got it, and now is complaining because it's not gold.

And for what it's worth, I saw a recent photo of her and I don't  think her face is oddly puffy.


* Before you can start on a 'OMG homophobe!!!1!!!one!!!!' tirade, here are my bona-fides: two gay roommates, a friend that was a drag queen (I'd go to his competitions to cheer him on and be the only straight guy in a sea of drunk and horny gay men) and had a friend that was a transsexual. Not a homophobe.

** Perez Hilton. Look at a few sites and shows and you'll see I'm right.

'via Blog this'