I AM BEAUTIFUL 4 ME

I met Ancil on Negril Beach in Jamaica during my escapade to...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:00:27 -0500

I met Ancil on Negril Beach in Jamaica during my escapade to participate in my first Reggae Marathon event December 1, 2012.

Ancil lost his arm to cancer at the age of 22 years. He taught himself to play keyboard and is now a regular beach entertainer.

Rocker Jillian Jensen bonds with Demi Lovato over bullying and...

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 01:42:24 -0500

Rocker Jillian Jensen bonds with Demi Lovato over bullying and delivers a teary-eyed and emotional performance of Jessie J’s “Who You Are” at her Providence audition.

Stop Bullying!

I am in charge of my own destiny…

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 22:09:32 -0400

I am in charge of my own destiny…

bodyheart is a movement encouraging women to celebrate the ART...

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 23:05:03 -0400

bodyheart is a movement encouraging women to celebrate the ART of their own form. We believe our bodies are walking works of ART meant to be celebrated and cherished.

This powerful campaign begins a conversation about what you love about your body instead of what you hate. Our un-retouched images capture the truth – how beauty really does come in all shapes, sizes, ages and colors.

readyforsomefootball: Oscar Pistorius runs with 5-year-old...

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:36:01 -0400

readyforsomefootball:

Oscar Pistorius runs with 5-year-old Ellie May Challis. Images taken from here, photographed by Andy Hooper. Find out more about Ellie May and her run with Oscar here.

Photo

Sat, 12 May 2012 15:39:02 -0400

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Sat, 12 May 2012 15:37:29 -0400

Happy Mommy Dearest to all Mommies and Mommies to be! If you...

Sat, 12 May 2012 15:36:42 -0400

Happy Mommy Dearest to all Mommies and Mommies to be!

If you want to be a bitch —- go ahead, it`s YOUR day!

Click on this link for some sultry music: (Warning - it`s in the language of love…French…courtesy of HipHop Artist ZPN)

You`re Vagina Isn`t Just Too Big, Too Floppy,and Too Hairy- It`s Also Too Brown

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:14:00 -0400

You`re Vagina Isn`t Just Too Big, Too Floppy,and Too Hairy- It`s Also Too Brown:

ASHLEY JUDD IS THE QUINTESSENTIAL ROLE MODEL

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:06:31 -0400

‘Puffy’ Appearance

by Ashley Judd Apr 9, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

Ashley Judd’s ‘puffy’ appearance sparked a viral media frenzy. But, the actress writes, the conversation is really a misogynistic assault on all women.

The Conversation about women’s bodies exists largely outside of us, while it is also directed at (and marketed to) us, and used to define and control us. The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. 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.

As an actor and woman who, at times, avails herself of the media, I am painfully aware of the conversation about women’s bodies, and it frequently migrates to my own body. I know this, even though my personal practice is to ignore what is written about me. I do not, for example, read interviews I do with news outlets. I hold that it is none of my business what people think of me. I arrived at this belief after first, when I began working as an actor 18 years ago, reading everything. I evolved into selecting only the “good” pieces to read. Over time, I matured into the understanding that good and bad are equally fanciful interpretations. I do not want to give my power, my self-esteem, or my autonomy, to any person, place, or thing outside myself. I thus abstain from all media about myself. The only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and my relationship with my Creator. Of course, it’s wonderful to be held in esteem and fond regard by family, friends, and community, but a central part of my spiritual practice is letting go of otheration. And casting one’s lot with the public is dangerous and self-destructive, and I value myself too much to do that.

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.

A brief analysis demonstrates that the following “conclusions” were all made on the exact same day, March 20, about the exact same woman (me), looking the exact same way, based on the exact same television appearance. The following examples are real, and come from a variety of (so-called!) legitimate news outlets (such as HuffPo, MSNBC, etc.), tabloid press, and social media:

One: When I am sick for more than a month and on medication (multiple rounds of steroids), the accusation is that because my face looks puffy, I have “clearly had work done,” with otherwise credible reporters with great bravo “identifying” precisely the procedures I allegedly have had done.

Two: When my skin is nearly flawless, and at age 43, I do not yet have visible wrinkles that can be seen on television, I have had “work done,” with media outlets bolstered by consulting with plastic surgeons I have never met who “conclude” what procedures I have “clearly” had. (Notice that this is a “back-handed compliment,” too—I look so good! It simply cannot possibly be real!)

Three: When my 2012 face looks different than it did when I filmed Double Jeopardyin 1998, I am accused of having “messed up” my face (polite language here, the F word is being used more often), with a passionate lament that “Ashley has lost her familiar beauty audiences loved her for.”

Four: When I have gained weight, going from my usual size two/four to a six/eight after a lazy six months of not exercising, and that weight gain shows in my face and arms, I am a “cow” and a “pig” and I “better watch out” because my husband “is looking for his second wife.” (Did you catch how this one engenders competition and fear between women? How it also suggests that my husband values me based only on my physical appearance? Classic sexism. We won’t even address how extraordinary it is that a size eight would be heckled as “fat.”)

That the conversation about my face was initially promulgated largely by women is a sad and disturbing fact.

Five: In perhaps the coup de grace, when I am acting in a dramatic scene inMissing—the plot stating I am emotionally distressed and have been awake and on the run for days—viewers remarks ranged from “What the f—k did she do to her face?” to cautionary gloating, “Ladies, look at the work!” Footage from “Missing” obviously dates prior to March, and the remarks about how I look while playing a character powerfully illustrate the contagious and vicious nature of the conversation. The accusations and lies, introduced to the public, now apply to me as a woman across space and time; to me as any woman and to me as every woman.

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.

A case in point is that this conversation was initially promulgated largely by women; a sad and disturbing fact. (That they are professional friends of mine, and know my character and values, is an additional betrayal.)

News outlets with whom I do serious work, such as publishing op-eds about preventing HIV, empowering poor youth worldwide, and conflict mineral mining in Democratic Republic of Congo, all ran this “story” without checking with my office first for verification, or offering me the dignity of the opportunity to comment. It’s an indictment of them that they would even consider the content printable, and that they, too, without using time-honored journalistic standards, would perpetuate with un-edifying delight such blatantly gendered, ageist, and mean-spirited content.

I hope the sharing of my thoughts can generate a new conversation: Why was a puffy face cause for such a conversation in the first place? How, and why, did people participate? If not in the conversation about me, in parallel ones about women in your sphere? What is the gloating about? What is the condemnation about? What is the self-righteous alleged “all knowing” stance of the media about? How does this symbolize constraints on girls and women, and encroach on our right to be simply as we are, at any given moment? How can we as individuals in our private lives make adjustments that support us in shedding unconscious actions, internalized beliefs, and fears about our worthiness, that perpetuate such meanness? What can we do as families, as groups of friends? Is what girls and women can do different from what boys and men can do? What does this have to do with how women are treated in the workplace?

I ask especially how we can leverage strong female-to-female alliances to confront and change that there is no winning here as women. It doesn’t actually matter if we are aging naturally, or resorting to surgical assistance. We experience brutal criticism. The dialogue is constructed so that our bodies are a source of speculation, ridicule, and invalidation, as if they belong to others—and in my case, to the actual public. (I am also aware that inevitably some will comment that because I am a creative person, I have abdicated my right to a distinction between my public and private selves, an additional, albeit related, track of highly distorted thinking that will have to be addressed at another time).

If this conversation about me is going to be had, I will do my part to insist that it is a feminist one, because it has been misogynistic from the start. Who makes the fantastic leap from being sick, or gaining some weight over the winter, to a conclusion of plastic surgery? Our culture, that’s who. The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood. It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings. Join in—and help change—the Conversation.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Ashley Judd is a prolific actress, who will next be seen in ABC’s new midseason show, Missing. Judd most recently appeared in Dolphin Tale alongside Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr. and Kris Kristofferson. Judd is also on the board of directors for PSI (Population Services International), which she joined in 2004 after serving as Global Ambassador for PSI’s HIV education and prevention program, YouthAIDS since 2002. Judd has visited PSI programs in Thailand, Cambodia, Madagascar, Kenya, South Africa, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In her work, she witnesses the lives of the exploited and poor to help educated the world about the reality of global poverty and bring solutions to the devastating effects of social injustice and gender inequality. Judd was the subject of three award-winning documentaries aired in more than 150 countries worldwide on VH1, The Discovery Channel and The National Geographic Channel. In her role as PSI board member, Judd has graced the covers of countless magazines and been the subject of newspaper and television interviews bringing vital awareness to issues closest to her heart, gender inequality and poverty alleviation. Judd has visited legislators on Capitol Hill, addressed the General Assembly of the UN on the scourge human trafficking, spoke at the National Press Club, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the protection of vulnerable women from violence, sexual abuse and HIV and, most recently served as an expert panelist at Clinton Global Initiative to discuss the issue of safe water and the empowerment of girls in the developing world. Recently, Judd has come on board as a spokesperson for organizations Defenders for Wildlife and The Sierra Club providing her time and voice to advocate against practices of aerial wolf hunting (Defenders for Wildlife) and mountaintop removal coal mining (The Sierra Club). She resides in Tennessee and Scotland with her husband, the international racing star Dario Franchitti. They have 8 beloved pets and enjoy a quiet, rural life.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

stophatingyourbody: you’re all beautiful, don’t ever think...

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:44:36 -0400

stophatingyourbody:

you’re all beautiful, don’t ever think otherwise. listen to this song, hope it helps <3

BE BRAVE! JOIN THE BODY PEACE REVOLUTION!

nakedserenity.tumblr.com

Sometimes it takes SUPER HEROINES to make a difference!

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:40:51 -0400

Sometimes it takes SUPER HEROINES to make a difference!

Life begins when you make love. Vanessa Paradis- Girl on the...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:12:20 -0500

Life begins when you make love. Vanessa Paradis- Girl on the Bridge.

Video

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:50:33 -0500

YOKO ONO celebrated her birthday February 12, 2012. She also...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:46:06 -0500

YOKO ONO celebrated her birthday February 12, 2012. She also added me on Pinterest which inspired me to create this poster as a homage to her devotion to PEACE FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD.

My admiration is purely selfish as I have been a follower of Yoko`s he(art) for many years and continue to be inspired by her. “It doesn`t matter how slow you go, as long as you don`t stop!”

Happy birthday to a woman who advocates for peace, human rights and women.

Yours sincerely,

Betty Esperanza4hire

Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia’,...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:36:00 -0500

Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia’, claims plus-size magazine in powerful comment on body image in the fashion industry.

A magazine dedicated to plus-size fashion and models has sparked controversy with a feature claiming that most runway models meet the Body Mass Index criteria for anorexia.

Accompanied by a bold shoot that sees a nude plus-size model posing alongside a skinny ‘straight-size’ model, PLUS Model Magazine says it aims to encourage plus-size consumers to pressure retailers to better cater to them, and stop promoting a skinny ideal.

Size 12 (U.S.) model Katya Zharkova, 28, stars in the shoot, which has a powerful statistic accompanying each image.

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Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:42:10 -0500

Vintage Weight Gain Ads

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:52:09 -0500

Vintage Weight Gain Ads:

I QUIT A HABIT…December 2011. I quit obsessing about my...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:36:00 -0500

I QUIT A HABIT…December 2011.

I quit obsessing about my weight. It`s a birthday present of sorts. I ran out of reasons to be pissed about it. I work hard, play hard, exercise with a wonderful trainer who kicks my butt, and eat reasonably well. I am doing the best I can. I made peace with my thyroid. Living life uninterrupted…

Vintage Weight Gain Ads | Retronaut

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 08:51:29 -0500

Vintage Weight Gain Ads | Retronaut