Ashley Judd’s Puffy Face: A Criticism to Society’s View of Women

The 43-year-old “Missing” actress has fought back at the press for allegations that she has had surgery or gained weight for her noticeable plumper face shape. When the actress took it the The Daily Beast to candidly write about the misogynistic battle on all women, many fans and feminists were jumping in their seats for her strong, forceful voice.

The key concepts in her article:

The victimization of objectification:

“We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted.”

How Hollywood culture deals with beauty:

“However, the recent speculation and accusations in March feel different, and my colleagues and friends encouraged me to know what was being said. Consequently, I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle. 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 is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about.”

The actress continues to write that she has undergone an increase of medicine which resulted in her ‘puffy face’. She claims that her appearance is – of course! – aged and disillusioned from images of younger self because she has had no surgeries on her face to embrace gracefully aging.

Judd has begun a healthier dialogue on the portrayal of women’s bodies throughout media. The Daily Beast took it upon themselves to invite readers to tell them their ‘Puffy Face’ moments.

One reader writes in the comment section: “Our current social and media culture thrives first on the exploitation of beauty and then the tearing down of women for their appearance. I can honestly say I haven’t bought a “women’s magazine” since I was 25, and I am now 50 years old. Yes, I am still observed and judged for my beauty/non-beauty/aging beauty by men and women alike.”

“But in my experience, women have become the worst perpetrators of this hateful culture of criticism designed to derail other women in favor of themselves for whatever psycho need they have to be the one wearing the imaginery[sic] tiara.”

Do you agree with Judd on her appearance? What are your own puffy face moments?