Actress Ashley Judd pens powerful essay on violence against women

Ashley Judd has penned down a powerful essay addressing violence towards women, recalling her own experience of being raped twice and sexual assault.

The 46-year old actress had earlier tweeted negative comment about a March Madness basketball play, calling it "dirty", which resulted in a "tsunami of gender-based violence and misogyny", E! Online reported.

In her essay, the Insurgent star wrote that tweets came up, referring to her as a "c--t," a "whore", a "bitch", and to suck a "two-inch d—k". Some had even threatened to rape.

She said that in order to amend for the offence that she might have committed, she had deleted her original tweet that was for a rage towards women, but what she had to go through was simply a devastating experience, faced by millions of girls on the internet.

The actress wrote "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 continued to recollect her experience with rape and assault and saying that she became a survivor rather than a victim, and after nine years into recovery, her own will and spirituality empowered her to become a survivor of the crime and allowed her to help others who went through the same phase.