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Amber Tamblyn has taken to the NYTimes Sunday Edition to decry the misogyny she has dealt with since her days as a young actor in Hollywood.
In the opinion piece, she describes a time on set at age 21 when she spoke to the producer of a show she was starring in at the time (this show was presumably Joan of Arcadia) about a crew member who made her feel unsafe on set. She described how the crew member "kept showing up to my apartment after work unannounced, going into my trailer while I wasn’t in it, and staring daggers at me from across the set." After she described the situation in full, the producer responded to her, saying "Well, there are two sides to every story.”
She chose to tell this story because, earlier this week, 70-year-old actor James Woods accused Tamblyn of lying when she tweeted about the time Woods tried to pick up her and a group of friends when they were 16 years old.
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 responded to the above tweet, claiming Tamblyn's memory was false.
The first is illegal. The second is a lie. https://t.co/0jD1dvtInC
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) September 12, 2017
Tamblyn subsequently expanded on her memory in an open letter to Teen Vogue on Wednesday, recalling the moment when she and her friend Billy "decided to go to Mel's diner on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood." While leaving Mel's, they encountered Woods, who asked the two of them if they wanted to accompany him to Las Vegas. When Tamblyn replied, telling Woods that she was 16 years old, Woods replied, saying "Even better. We'll have so much fun, I promise."
She compared Woods' accusation to the experience she had as a 21-year-old in her producer's office:
Mr. Woods’s accusation that I was lying sent me back to that day in that producer’s office, and back to all the days I’ve spent in the offices of men; of feeling unsure, uneasy, questioned and disbelieved, no matter the conversation.
For Tamblyn, Woods' denial of the experience is part of a larger pattern where "[w]omen do not get to have a side." She has chosen to continue speaking against James Woods because she "[had] been afraid of speaking out or asking things of men in positions of power for years," but now believes "[women] 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."
