Silencing Women: The Cost, The Benefits, The Impact

Dr. Sherri, The UnMuted One

Silence is not a personality trait, and it has nothing to do with whether you are an introvert or not. Silence is a survival strategy.

As a Black woman who works with Black women of faith, I hear it all of the time. I hear the same stories over and over again. Brillant women. Faithful women. Women who pray, serve, lead, give, and show up. And yet, when it comes to their own needs, their own callings, their own pain, they get quiet.

Make no mistake about it. This silence is not because they don’t have something to say. It’s certainly not because lack courage because they make courageous decisions every day. Instead, their silence has a lot to do with being conditioned, both socially and spiritually, to keep quiet.

I call this the Silencing Syndrome, a layered a complex pattern that forms at the intersection of personal history, psychological conditioning, cultural expectations, and institutional power. It teaches women how to survive systems that were never designed with their full humanity in mind.

Personal silencing happens when a woman learns to put herself last. When she postpones her healing because everyone else “needs her.” When she convinces herself that rest, clarity, or joy can wait.

Psychological silencing shows up when she begins to doubt her own discernment. When fear sounds like wisdom. When self-censorship becomes automatic.

Cultural and social silencing emerges through messages about respectability, loyalty, and being a “good woman.” And institutional silencing is reenforced when churches, organizations, and traditions benefit from her obedience more than her wholeness.

Silence is taught. And it is rewarded.

But it is also costly, and it is not abstract. It lives in the body. It shows up as anxiety, resentment, fatigue, and disconnection. It erodes confidence and dulls spiritual clarity. Over time, silence fractures a woman’s sense of self. She may still function. She may even succeed. But she does so while carrying a quiet grief for the parts of herself she has abandoned to survive.

Systems benefit. Institutions benefit. Churches benefit. Cultures benefit because silence keeps the status quo intact. Silence prevents disruption and it protects comfort. Silence allows harmful practices to continue unchecked, all while being spiritualized as humility, patience, or faithfulness.

In other words, silence keeps women manageable.

When women are silent, daughters learn how to swallow their questions. Nieces learn to play small and downsize their dreams. Young girls learn that God speaks through everyone except them. Silence is inherited unless it is interrupted.

That’s why speaking up matters, and the benefits flow outward.

When one woman speaks, another woman feels less alone.

When one woman heals, she models freedom.

When one woman refuses to be silenced, she creates language and possibility for those coming behind her.

Silence may have protected you once. But it does not have to define you.

Your voice is not a threat.

Your truth is not rebellion.

Your healing is not selfish.

And that matters more than we’ve ever been taught to believe.