The Oppression of Women’s Voices

As part of the two-year course regarding our theme ‘Women in Society’, we have studied
many books and texts such as ‘A Room of One’s Own’ by Virginia Woolf, ‘Macbeth’ by
William Shakespeare, ‘The Handmaids Tale’ by Margaret Atwood and a collection of poems
written by Grace Nichols from ‘I Have Crossed An Ocean’. We have also covered other types
of media, including articles, films and music to explore the many aspects and experiences of
women in society. In this essay, however, I will focus on women’s voices and how they have
been silenced throughout history, and still in today’s society. Silence is a characteristic that
is often expected of women, it makes women into whatever someone else wants them to
be and blocks them from making a change. Throughout history women’s voices have been
severely oppressed, silenced and ignored, in which they were only allowed to vote since the
20th century. However, this basic human right was heavily fought for by women through
protests and riots during the early waves of feminism. This source of empowerment through
their voices is considered traditionally feminine, as most documentations and records of
women throughout history was done orally; ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is a collection of two
speeches, ‘The Handmaids Tale’ was addressed as a collection of tapes in the historical
notes, and the art of poetry is traditionally oral, in order to emphasise the meaning behind
the words. Even though women are still getting hushed and ignored, there are some women
who have recently found their voice to make a difference in society, such as Malala
Yousafzai who risked her life in her act to advocate for girls' education around the world,
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who talks about gender equality and feminism in her speech ‘we
should all be feminists’, and Halsey who held a powerful speech about her experience of
sexual abuse.

Women’s voices have been suppressed historically and contemporarily through their
material inequality and patriarchal structures, therefore their perspective and experiences
don’t get voiced or recognised. This can be seen in ‘A Room of One’s Own’ when Mary Seton
visits the British Library and notices how all of history has been written by men and from
their perspective, in which she asks “How many books are written by women?…How many
are written by men?”. This shows that the tradition of women writing has been much
ignored due to the inferior position women have held in male-dominated societies. There
was barely any record of women throughout history that wasn’t from the perspective of a
man. As we learnt in class, women used to be inferior to men and only seen as something
for the men to own, for example a housewife and a child-bearer. Due to this inferiority, they
weren’t able to document their view or experiences and how they were treated, even if
they attempted too, their work wasn’t acknowledged as worthy by producers and ended up
being turned down. Therefore, women’s voices were involuntarily silenced, they had no
choice over their life, thus they were just forced into the traditional lives they were
expected to live.

Women also face many consequences, both mentally and physically, due to their voices
being restricted and hushed. This is portrayed in ‘A Room of One’s Own’ firstly with the
fictional character of Judith Shakespeare. Judith's life is filled with tragedy, in which her
material inferiority leads to her inability to express herself. When she tried to escape to
London to pursue her gifts in art, she is turned away with scorn from every theatre she

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approaches, as the “The manager - a fat, loose zipper man - guffawed” at Judith for wanting
to act. This shows that due to her gender she’s not taken seriously and is made fun of for
wanting to pursue in something that was very obviously male dominated in that time. She
later becomes pregnant, which makes a life of writing impossible, and she eventually kills
herself. Judith was constantly oppressed and restricted by her gender and her voice was
silenced and ignored throughout her entire life, which lead her to think that the only way to
free herself from this never-ending oppression was through suicide. Woolf creates the
character of Judith to show how “any women born with great gift in the sixteenth century
would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself” and advises young women to have the
power to be the voice that Judith never had.
A second consequence many women face due to their voice being silenced is anger. This is
also portrayed in ‘A Room of One’s Own’ when the narrator is in the library and realizes that
women’s writing “had been written in the red light of emotion and not in the white light of
truth”. Women being constantly shut down by men and never properly being heard or
listened to causes them anger, hence their writing doesn’t reflect their true selves, instead
it’s filled with hatred. This is still a very present issue in today’s society, not just in writing
but in everyday life. Women’s voices being silenced has a major effect on them mentally, we
start feeling devalued and unworthy, ignored, mocked and not taken seriously. We get told
to ‘calm down’, to ‘stop being so dramatic’ or that it’s ‘no big deal’. Even though one could
argue that this behaviour is instinctive, and no harm is meant, men need to be more aware
of their actions and address them. Our anger causes us to become more aggressive in our
speaking, which is then seen as ‘immature’ or ‘not professional’ or ‘too emotional’.
Although ‘A Room of One’s Own’ was one of my least favourites to read, mainly due to the
writing style, it’s message behind it was very crucial and is still relevant to today’s society
even though it was published in 1929.

Women are prevented from expressing their voices in the written word, but also oral
accounts are discredited through patriarchal merit criteria. This can be seen in ‘The
Handmaids Tale’ when the Handmaids are described as “a nondescript woman in red”,
completely devoid of an identity. Their voices have also been taken away from them, which
makes Offred realise how much she’d taken for granted before, as she mentions “he has the
word. How he squandered it once”. As we’ve learned in class, women have been fighting
since the 19th century, when the first wave of feminism begone, for their rights and voices to
be heard, thus, to suddenly have them all cut off is very frightening. Women’s rights haven’t
come naturally to us, they have been fought for for many years, and since the people in
power are mostly men, it is terrifyingly easy for them to be taken away from us again.
During Gilead, Offred feels guilty for not listening to her mother sooner and begins to realise
the power of speech and her voice, in which she says “the power of the words…Pen is
envy”. Just like Offred, women’s voices being silenced in Gilead made me appreciate and
value my voice more and understand the power it holds. Under such suffocating conditions,
Offred suffered the fear and pain of being cut off from the sphere of language and voice,
hence she becomes desperate for her voice to be heard and uses it as an act of defiance in
which she “if it’s a story…I must be telling it to someone”. Offred refuses to forget the past
or reconcile herself to the present. In a society in which women are forbidden to read or
write or to speak freely, her tale becomes a protest. It becomes a gesture of resistance to
her imprisonment in silence and becomes her coping mechanism and primary means for her
psychological survival.

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However, even when women try to speak up about their experiences and use their voice as
a sense of empowerment, they still get shut down or doubted by men. This can also be seen
in ‘The Handmaids Tale’ when Offred’s story is questioned and joked about in historical
notes by the Professor. Offred struggled on in Gilead, fighting to voice out and enter the
sphere of language, in which she afterwards made various tapes of her experiences. Though
her narration broke the segregation and her voice outlived Gilead’s, it was closely followed
by Professor Pieixoto’s speech, which accused Offred’s narration as a “malicious invention”
and “a whiff of emotion recollected”. This signifies Offred's inability to make her voice
heard, as even after all her effort, the voice of the male Professor threatens to drown out
Offred's voice and the significance of her autobiography. Her voice was dismissed,
circumvented and muffled by the male Professor. I believe this signifies real life, as women’s
narrative is always devalued and doubted by males. Our voices are still being ignored and
not taken seriously, just as sexual assault victims are being silenced and blamed for their
abuse. I believe this aspect is very important, as perhaps today, when progress seems to be
moving us closer to a more equal future, the construct of dystopia is needed to draw
attention to the fragility and newness of women's voices, to keep us from taking our
freedom to speak for granted, to urge the need for continuing the fight, and to highlight the
courage and beauty of those who break silences.

The majority of the literature we’ve studied speaks of the consequences and dismissal of
women raising their voices to be heard, however some writers such as Grace Nichols
prompts us to use our voice as a source of empowerment and to achieve change. Nichols
refuses to stay silent and uses her poetry to give voice to minorities and people who have
been oppressed, as seen in her poem ‘I Coming Back’. In this poem she harshly repeats “I
coming back ‘Massa’ ” in a haunting tone to give voice a fictional slave, who has been
abused due to their race and gender. She uses Caribbean patois such as “yuh” and “Massa”
to emphasise and represent the dialect of enslaved Africans and their hybrid culture.
Nichols is ‘giving voice’ through her poetry by representing the life of African slaves, the
struggles they had to face and how they were treated by their masters. Due to slaves not
being educated properly they weren’t able to record their experiences and were not
acknowledged in the past. Nichols also stresses the significance of the female slaves acts of
resistance, however small or subtle, as well as a longer tradition of black female resistance.
Not only is the retention and retelling of these narratives in the Caribbean crucial, but also
women have traditionally played a significant role in keeping such traditions alive. Reading
literature and poetry from women of other backgrounds, ethnicities or race is really
important as it shows the view and perspective of other women. Most books in the literary
canon are written by white middle-class men, therefore I believe reading more diverse
literature is essential, not just for understanding but as a way of empowerment and bringing
awareness of the horrific situations minorities had and still have to go through. Many other
people have voiced what happened to them and didn’t let their circumstances or society
silence them, such as Halsey and Malala Yousafzai. Halsey spoke out about her experience
of being sexually assaulted as a child in her poem "A Story Like Mine". She expressed how
her boyfriend would force her to have sex, and how she had to perform live through a
miscarriage. She explained how being in the public eye has not guarded her from being
abused and encourages all women, whether Black, Asian, poor, wealthy, trans, cis, Muslim
or Christian to stand up for themselves and “be a voice for all those who have prisoner

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tongues.” Similarly, Malala Yousafzai, at just eleven years old used the power of her voice to
advocate for a girl’s right to education.  Due to this she was the target of attack and risked
her entire life, hence she got shot in the head for going to school. She has since recovered
and become a global activist, stating "they thought the bullets would silence us. But they
failed". Both these women are incredibly inspiring and a role-model to other women who
have trouble in speaking their truths.

As a result of this course, I have not only learnt about women in society, but it has also
made me more aware of women’s oppression and the consequences of it. Going against
the patriarchy and trying to break free from their traditional life is very challenging and
leads to serious consequences, as seen with the characters of Judith Shakespeare, Ofglen
and Moira. However, breaking free from the norm and reclaiming one’s identity is very
important and is a way of empowering oneself and giving voice, as Grace Nichols addresses.
When women share their stories of abuse, injustice, and trauma they are stepping outside of
the boundaries that have been created for them, mainly by men. Women are expected to
stay quiet about their abuse and the possibility of being revictimised all over again when they
do dare speak up is a strong deterrent to saying anything at all. Due to society constantly
reinforcing the belief that women shouldn’t make such a fuss and speak out of turn, we have
all internalised this idea as a manner of behaviour. I’ve personally experienced this in many
different ways, as I often get ignored or silenced or seen as dramatic when I try to voice my
opinions or stand up for myself. The amount of times I’ve been told to ‘calm down’ or ‘shut
up’ is incredibly problematic and this course has made my more aware of these comments
and address them, rather than just viewing it as normal, ‘no big deal’ or a ‘joke’.

In conclusion, I believe ‘Women in Society’ is a very important theme to learn about in

school, as in this society sexism has been heavily normalised and become almost embedded
into society. Most people are instinctively sexist without even realizing it, therefore, it’s
important to address these problems and make people more aware of them. Society has
manipulated us women into thinking we are undeserving of our voices, and therefore should
not use them. We’re told to be nice and polite, not to be rude and not to speak our mind.
We’re taught these fundamentals at a young age so that when we’re adults our voice has
already in many ways been silenced and we’ve already been conditioned to accept these
sexist comments. Personally, I believe when studying this course, one should more real-life
situations and articles of women who have faced struggles, such as being silenced or
punished for trying to make a difference. As examples of sexist behaviour in real life helps
show how serious it really is and how it is still a very defining, present issue in our society.
We need all women’s stories, not just white middle-class women to use their own voices to
tell their stories. We don’t need men or society to edit or revise or censor those stories to
their benefit. We need women to be angry, to rage against injustice, to speak loudly so that
those who are still pushed into silence can hear. We need to listen to what women have to
say.

Dani