What happened when Amber Tamblyn told her mom about her sexual assault story will make you rethink a lot
Amber Tamblyn is speaking out and getting stronger with the process.
A few weeks after speaking out about sexual assault, Tamblyn revealed that her sexual assault story brought her closer to her mom and really made her think about what she’ll be like as a mother, now that she’s expecting her first child with husband, David Cross.
In early October, Tamblyn opened up about her past experience of being in both a physically and emotionally abusive relationship and through that story she learned something about herself and bonded with her mother who she had to call and warn about the story coming out.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants actress penned an essay for Glamour on Wednesday and revealed that while telling her mom her sexual assault story, she realized that her mom had a similar tale to tell her, which got her thinking about the change we need in America.
“Somewhere between Donald Trump calling Hillary Clinton a woman with ‘tremendous hate in her heart’ and ‘a nasty woman,’ I found myself making a phone call to my mother I was hoping I could avoid forever,” Tamblyn began her letter for Glamour.
"A story I shared about an encounter with an ex-boyfriend had gone viral, and I feared she would read about it in the news. When I told her, my mother's reaction was unshockingly unshocked. 'You know,' she began, 'I have a story of my own I want to share with you,'" she continued.
“Go ahead and fill in the blank of my mother’s story. It’s easy, isn’t it?” Tamblyn continued. “I was at a ________, and a guy _________. I was _______ years old and the father of one of my friends __________. I was at work and my boss ___________. I was walking down the street and __________. I exist, therefore ___________ is bound to happen.”
The 33-year-old actress went on to explain that her mother told her another story that day, the second one being about her mother’s response (Tamblyn’s grandmother) to her experience.
"She told her mother what had happened to her, and I'll bet you can fill in this blank, too. My grandmother's response to my mother was, 'Boys will be boys. You just have to be really careful around them,'" the California native said.
This wisdom about “boys will be boys” is what got Tamblyn to thinking about what needs to change and what she wants her daughter to know when she enters this world.
"[Boys will be boys] encourages women to take a backseat in their own lives, telling them it's okay: men know how to drive and know what they're doing. It tells us to shush, to not make a fuss, to accept the world as it was built for us. It tells us we shouldn't ask for more than what we are given, from dollar bills to the Bill of Rights. Boys will be boys and girls will be, what? Quiet. Hungry. Subservient. Game," she said.
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After processing the stories her mother told her it left Tamblyn with a lot of questions in regards to her daughter and the future for women in general.
"Will I get a phone call from my daughter someday, one she never wanted to make? Will I have to share with her my story, and the story of her great-grandmother’s words to her grandmother? Is it possible to protect her from inheriting this pain?" she asked.
“How much do I have to do, as a daughter and a soon-to-be mother, to change not just the conversation about how women are seen, but the language with which conversations are spoken in?”
Tamblyn then urged the readers to think about who they will be voting for and then talked about why she was supporting Hillary Clinton. She also revealed that after talking to her mom, her bond with her was stronger than ever.
"When I hung up the phone with my mom, I felt really good about our conversation and that she chose to tell me her story," Tamblyn wrote. "After I’m done writing this, I’ll go back to my desk and fill out my absentee ballot. I’ll be voting for more than just a woman; I’ll be voting for a revolutionary idea."
Everything Tamblyn wrote in this letter is powerful, thought-provoking and inspiring. It makes us want to read it over and over again because above all else Tamblyn is promoting strong women and a sexual assault free world, which we can definitely get behind.
