Ashley Judd?? On Being Sexually Harassed By Hollywood Executive: ‘We Internalize The Shame’
Ashley Judd is adding herself to the growing list of actresses claiming to have experienced sexual harassment at the hands of Hollywood’s biggest movers and shakers, but, as Ms. Judd revealed at the beginning of her confession, Ashley was not in the running for any particular part. Rather, Ashley says that her situation was far more insidious, with this particular executive exercising his power over her in stages and over time.
Ashley Judd Says One Executive Took the Title of Her Film Kiss the Girls Far Too Literally
While Ashley says the Hollywood executive in question is well-known, he was not involved with Kiss the Girls at all, and Judd only mentioned the film because it had been the movie she’d been working on at the time the harassment had begun. Ashley Judd admitted to Variety that she was as disgusted with herself as she was with that unnamed exec, simply because she had been deeply involved in the feminist movement and had also been minoring in gender studies in college at the time. Instead of speaking out about the sexual harassment, when it had been happening, Ms. Judd had been focused more on discouraging the executive without offending him.
“In my example, there was no casting involved. This was just twirling the lasso,” she explains. “He was so stealth and expert about it. He groomed me, which is a technical term – Oh, come meet at the hotel for something to eat. Fine, I show up. Oh, he’s actually in his room. I’m like, Are you kidding me? I just worked all night. I’m just going to order cereal. It went on in these stages.”
Ashley Judd Says it is More Difficult to Walk Away Than Most Realize
Ms. Judd guesses that the online community would lay the blame at her feet, saying that she could have walked away at any time, but Ashley, speaking of victims’ experiences in and out of Hollywood, expressed the problem with that solution. Ms. Judd says it may seem like an easy thing to suggest in hindsight, but, at the time, the exec held all of the power.
“I have a feeling if this is online and people have the opportunity to post comments, a lot of the people will say, ‘Why didn’t you leave the room?’ which is victim-blaming. When I kept saying no to everything, there was a huge asymmetry of power and control in that room,” Ms. Judd said.
Ashley looks back on the incident, as she has throughout the intervening years, and can now recognize that there was something wrong with that entire situation. Years later, Ms. Judd has come to recognize that the executive’s actions were immoral and illegal, so she no longer feels the guilt and shame associated with victim blaming.
“I beat myself up for a while,” Kiss the Girls‘ Ashley Judd said, according to People magazine. “This is another part of the process. We internalize the shame. It really belongs to the person who is the aggressor.”
Ms. Judd also came to learn that she wasn’t the only one to have been victimized by this same individual. Other women confided to Ashley that this Hollywood mogul had used exactly the same manipulations and words on each of them, which served to give Ms. Judd the courage she needed to change the situation to her advantage.
“In that moment, I told him something like, ‘When I win an Academy Award in one of your movies.’ He said, ‘No, when you get nominated.’ I said, ‘No, no, when I win an Academy Award.’ That was a small moment of power when I was able to contradict him and hold to my reality. And then I got out of there. And by the way, I’ve never been offered a movie by that studio. Ever.”
There’s a lesson to be learned from Ms. Judd’s experience and the actress hopes that, by sharing her story, girls and women across America will come to realize that they can take the power from their aggressors. Ashley Judd says the key to escaping situations of frequent sexual harassment is to recognize that those in power use ridicule and retaliation to keep them in line.
[Featured image: Ashley Judd courtesy of Mireya Acierto/Getty Images]
