Alexandra NielDivorce Recovery Coach, ANiel International, LLC. · I help women who held it all together through divorce finally build a life that’s actually theirs | Thrive After Divorce

Cultural Silencing | When Women Lose Their Voice

6 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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1:02

In this monologue, the speaker describes how, within her cultural context, women are expected to be completely obedient to their husbands—silencing dissent, conforming to appearance demands, and relinquishing personal preferences. She emphasizes that these pressures are cultural rather than religious. The speaker recounts feeling unheard, likening conversations with her husband to talking to a wall, and explains how she has cultivated a conscious, non‑reactive stance that prevents provocation from affecting her, thereby resisting the silencing dynamic.

Chapters

In our culture, a woman cannot raise her voice to her husband. A woman cannot say no to her husband. A woman, um, must obey his request and his requirements. A woman must mold herself. Like, if he says, hey, I want you to dress more modestly, you must do it. This is all culture, not religion. This is all culture. If he says, I don't like your hair short, you need to grow it out. Grow out your hair. You know what, I love it when you paint your nails. Let's start painting your nails. So it's like you don't really keep the things that make you happy. So when I had done all those things and still there was a 45-minute on and on session about— well, you're just talking to a wall basically at that time in my head. I'm like, you have given me this beautiful ability to no longer react. Now I respond, and I respond so consciously that you can't even try to provoke me because I know it's your intention.