The majority of sexual assaults in the US are not reported.
“What’s the point, if you won’t be believed?” actress Amber Tamblyn poignantly asks in her powerful New York Times op-ed. But as the title of her piece says, Tamblyn is “done with not being believed.”
What's powerful about @ambertamblyn's action is she no longer accepts the blame. In that way, she frees us all.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) September 13, 2017
In the article, Tamblyn shares a story about being stalked by a crew member at the age of 21. Perhaps more shockingly is that Tamblyn, who was then starring in “Joan of Arcadia,” informed her producer of the situation only to be told “there are two sides to every story.”
But “for women in America who come forward with stories of harassment, abuse and sexual assault, there are not two sides to every story, however noble that principle might seem,” Tamblyn writes. “Women do not get to have a side. They get to have an interrogation. Too often, they are questioned mercilessly about whether their side is legitimate.”
Women who report sexual assault and rape in the US are often met with criticism and doubt. The burden of proof is frequently on victims of sexual assault to show that the incident actually occurred and was “unwanted” or uninvited. So two out of three incidents of sexual assaults go unreported, and only six in every 1000 rapists will be incarcerated, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.
Tamblyn’s op-ed is, in part, a response to tweets from the actor James Woods, who Tamblyn says tried to take her to Las Vegas, Nevada, when she was just 16 years old. Upon telling him she was underage, Woods responded “even better.”
James Woods tried to pick me and my friend up at a restaurant once. He wanted to take us to Vegas. "I'm 16" I said. "Even better" he said.
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) September 11, 2017
Woods denied Tamblyn’s story, accusing her of lying. His accusation forced the actress to recall all the times she had nervously shared her concerns with men in positions of power, only to be questioned and disbelieved, the star of “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants” wrote.
She also penned an open letter to Woods, which appears on Teen Vogue.
“Since you've now called me a liar, I will now call you a silencer,” the 34-year-old actress wrote. “I see your gaslight and now will raise you a scorched earth.”
“I was just a girl. And I'm going to wager that there have been many girls who were just girls or women who were just women who you've done this to because you can get away with it.”
I cannot tell you how many people have texted, messaged and emailed me with personal stories about James Woods over the last day.
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) September 14, 2017
Neither Tamblyn’s open letter nor her New York Times op-ed is intended to just clap back at Woods. She wants to change the larger, pervasive culture in the US that enables sexual harassment and assault to be “normalized,” she said.
“The saddest part of this story doesn't even concern me but concerns the universal woman's story. The nation's harmful narrative of disbelieving women first, above all else,” she laments in the Teen Vogue letter. “Asking them to first corroborate or first give proof or first make sure we're not misremembering.”
She emphasized this point on Twitter, clarifying that her op-ed is not just about Woods, but about a larger cultural phenomenon that shields men like Woods from the consequences of their actions.
This is less about what just happened with Woods and more about Woods Culture and how we can end it. https://t.co/oc3IRbVk8e
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) September 16, 2017
This is not the first time Tamblyn has spoken up against sexual assault and violence against women. Tamblyn was outraged by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” comments last year.
She bravely shared her own story of assault.
“To this day I remember that moment. I remember the shame,” she said on Instagram.
“I have been afraid of speaking out or asking things of men in positions of power for years,” she wrote in the New York Times, but she won’t be keeping quiet any longer. “The women I know, myself included, are done, though, playing the credentials game. We are learning that the more we open our mouths, the more we become a choir. And the more we are a choir, the more the tune is forced to change.”
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