Ashley Judd’s name has been in the news a lot these past few weeks for a heart-wrenching reason: she is one of the brave women who went on record in the explosive New York Times investigation about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged extensive history of harassment and assault.
Now, the Divergent actress is speaking out about how she handles harassment in her everyday life to Teen Vogue.
“Stop! That is inappropriate and unwelcome,” she practices saying to imaginary harassers, holding her hands “up like catcher’s mitts, telling her potential harasser to stop what they’re doing and, at the same time, making her hands like a shield between her and the hurtful comments.”
While Judd practices telling off harassers and making herself “really big,” she recognizes that race, ability, and other factors can change how a victim responds — and that there is no right way to combat harassment. (It is never, ever the victim’s fault regardless of how they choose to react.)
“Our bargaining strategies and things we do in these moments are normal,” she explains. “Anything we do in these situations is really OK.”
In the end, she closes, “feeling safe is everything. That’s essentially what is taken from us when we experience sexual harassment and micro-aggressions.”
In speaking out — both about Weinstein and about her own tactics for responding to harassment — Judd is helping this world come to grips with how fearful many women are made to feel in their everyday lives and holding harassers accountable for their inexcusable actions.
