Amber Tamblyn on the Books Guys Should Read to Understand #MeToo

Roughly a year and a half since the #MeToo movement broke through, Amber Tamblyn thinks things are actually getting better. She’s well aware of how tumultuous and exhausting the past couple of years have been in general, of course. “I don’t think I know a single person that has been like, ‘Yeah, the last two years were pretty chill,’ ” Tamblyn says. But when it comes specifically to #MeToo, Tamblyn believes that, as a culture, we’re making progress.

“I think that there have been incremental, small changes across industries,” the 35-year-old actress, filmmaker, writer, and activist says. “I think that those incremental changes are cumulative.” That might not be the immediate, sweeping change that some people are fighting for, but it’s also “not nothing,” as Tamblyn says.

Tamblyn's new book, Era of Ignition, intertwines the cultural reckoning of the #MeToo movement and the Time’s Up initiative (the latter of which Tamblyn is a founding member) with the personal and professional awakening that she says she experienced over the past several years, a period during which she worked to redefine herself as more than “just an actress.”

“I kind of felt like, ‘Wow, what I have been experiencing in my own personal life, what I have experienced over the last ten years, is very similar, existentially, to where the nation is right now,’ ” Tamblyn says, “as far as questioning our values, trying to figure out not only who you are but what you want.”

Part essay collection and part memoir, the book details the tenacity it took to get her directorial debut, 2016's Paint It Black, made; recalls a horrific sexual assault by an ex-boyfriend; paints the apocalyptic scene at the Javits Convention Center on election night in November 2016; and presents a “Male Ally Manifesto,” which is exactly what it sounds like—a five-point proposal that clearly outlines the ways in which men can help support women. (One such point: “If a woman is being harassed, bullied, or silenced in your presence, have a zero-tolerance policy.”) And the book does all of this in a way that’s engaging and enlightening, and shot through with Tamblyn’s frank sense of humor.

In tandem with the release of Era of Ignition, and in the spirit of the book’s “Male Ally Manifesto,” we asked Tamblyn to recommend a list of books that will help contextualize the #MeToo movement and offer men a greater understanding of the world through women's eyes. Her recommendations are below, in her own words. Her comments have been edited and condensed for the sake of clarity.

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister (2018)

I think that this book is so important, both for contemporary understanding but also for the history of where [women’s] rage can come from. I think the book is really sharp and gives a very important historical context to how women—predominantly women of color—have led these civil rights movements. They really helped to change the country, and help create better circumstances, a better world, and a better country for women and things that pertain to women, whether it’s health care or the right to vote. I would say look at it so that you can understand how much women have had to fight, and to really know what those fights are, so that they’re not just thoughts or ideas. They’re real, concrete stories behind how this nation was built and how it has included women.

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2017)

Oh, I love this book so much, for many reasons. Chimamanda is one of my favorite authors. But I like this book because it’s really short; it’s a longform letter.

I just think [the book has] so many incredible ideas and ways to frame traditional gender roles of men and women in relationships and in parenthood. And I also love the book because it’s really inclusive to men and inclusive to fathers. There’s this idea that men are also caretakers, they’re also nurturing.

I really like that it sort of breaks out of the stereotypes of those gender roles. I think that men will really respond to that, because it’s a quick, easy read and it’s powerful and it includes men in a really nice and important way. And I think they’ll feel seen in that book.

It’s also just ways to not set your daughter up for failure, either as a father or as a mother. And how do we raise our sons, too? How do we raise our sons to be better versions of themselves? I think it’s a really smart look at raising kids in today’s world. It’s literally a book you could read in one sitting, it’s so short.

Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity by Sarah B. Pomeroy (1975)

This one in particular I think is so important to look at because it studies the archetypes of women and how they have been perceived and how they have been boxed into these categories, which the title literally represents. And I think, at any given time, women play into those roles and men expect women to fill those roles. And likely it will be a very challenging and interesting read, for someone to think of someone in their life that perhaps they have boxed into that kind of category—whether it’s a girlfriend that you might be slightly controlling over, or your mom, or even a woman at work. I think you learn a lot about how you value women, or how you value girls, by looking at these archetypes throughout history—not just in the United States and contemporary history, but dating back to the Roman Empire.

Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Jung (1933)

I have a pretty short answer for this, and that is that I think everyone should be in therapy. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Jungian therapy, but I am a huge proponent of that. So I recommended this book because I think it’s the most accessible of Carl Jung’s books, and I just think that people should start there—men should start there—and then they should all go be in therapy. Every single one of them. It’d be great for them.

I reference Carl Jung a lot—I definitely talk to people about that all the time. And I have many times recommended this book to men and, in fact, even bought it for a few men on occasion. One of them, a friend of mine who is big into meditation, really loved it and thought it was quite interesting. For the most part, it’s a good gesture, and I hope that even if they don’t read the book, the placement of that book in their house, staring at them, maybe at some point will actually egg them on to go do the work on themselves that they need to do. Because the truth of the matter is that none of us can save ourselves by ourselves. You just can’t.