Ashley Judd Recalls Incest and Being Raped Twice, Pens Powerful Essay About Violence Towards Women

You have to read the actress's moving story about being bullied online because she's a woman

Ashley Judd has penned a powerful essay about violence against women.

After tweeting something negative about a specific March Madness basketball play, the actress says she was on the receiving end of a "tsunami of gender-based violence and misogyny."

"Tweets rolled in, calling me a c--t, a whore or a bitch, or telling me to suck a two-inch d--k. Some even threatened rape, or 'anal anal anal,'" the Insurgent star writes. "I deleted my original tweet after the game, before all hell broke loose, to make amends for any genuine offense I may have committed by describing play as 'dirty.' (Of course, other people, including my uncle who is a chaplain, also expressed fear that the athletes would be hurt badly. But my uncle wasn't told he was a smelly p---y. He wasn't spared because of his profession; being a male sports fan is his immunity from abuse.)."

Hello, World! I'm glad the #onlinebullying & specifically #onlinegenderviolence we all experience is being discussed Thank you.

? ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) March 18, 2015

"What happened to me is the devastating social norm experienced by millions of girls and women on the Internet. 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. I know this experience is universal, though I'll describe specifically what happened to me," Judd continues. "I read in vivid language the various ways, humiliating and violent, in which my genitals, vaginal and anal, should be violated, shamed, exploited and dominated. Either the writer was going to do these things to me, or they were what I deserved. My intellect was insulted: I was called stupid, an idiot. My age, appearance and body were attacked. Even my family was thrown into the mix: Someone wrote that my 'grandmother is creepy.'"

Judd went on to recount her own multiple experiences with rape and assault. "I am a survivor of sexual assault, rape and incest. 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 adds. "Today, nine years into my recovery, I can go farther and say my 'story" is not 'my story.' It is something a Higher Power (spirituality, for me, has been vital in this healing) uses to allow me the grace and privilege of helping others who are still hurting, and perhaps to offer a piece of education, awareness and action to our world."