Ashley Judd Slams “Devastating” Online Threats in Essay

Actress and Kentucky Wildcats fan Ashley Judd is firing back at those who posted threats and hateful comments online after she tweeted that she thought Arkansas was playing dirty in its SEC basketball matchup with her alma mater.

In an online essay posted Thursday on mic.com, Judd says she routinely copes with tweets that "sexualize, objectify, insult, degrade and even physically threaten me."

But she writes, "this particular tsunami of gender-based violence and misogyny flooding my Twitter feed was overwhelming."

Judd said this week in an interview on MSNBC that she planned to press charges if she could.

The actress said in the essay that she took the tweet down soon after posting it Sunday, in case anyone was offended by her saying Arkansas' play was unsportsmanlike. But that didn't stop the comments.

"What happened to me is the devastating social norm experienced by millions of girls and women on the Internet," Judd wrote. "Online harassers use the slightest excuse (or no excuse at all) to dismember our personhood. My tweet was simply the convenient delivery system for a rage toward women that lurks perpetually."

She added: "I must, as a woman who was once a girl, as someone who uses the Internet, as a citizen of the world, address personally, spiritually, publicly and even legally, the ripe dangers that invariably accompany being a woman and having an opinion about sports or, frankly, anything else."

The actress also recalled her own experiences of sexual abuse.

“I am a survivor of sexual assault, rape and incest," Judd wrote. "I am greatly blessed that in 2006, other thriving survivors introduced me to recovery. I seized it. My own willingness, partnered with a simple kit of tools, has empowered me to take the essential odyssey from undefended and vulnerable victim to empowered survivor.”

She added, “The nature of recovering from trauma is that it can be ongoing, with deeper levels of healing and freedom coming with indefatigable persistence to keep chipping away at it.”

Judd discussed her experiences with sexual abuse in her 2011 memoir “All That Is Bitter and Sweet.”

She ended her essay calling out to outspoken survivors of abuse: "We have much to discuss, and much action to take. Join me."

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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