When protecting him means punishing her. Some women aren’t silenced by men.They’re silenced by other women. Not with fists.But with sideways glances
When protecting him means punishing her.
Some women aren’t silenced by men.
They’re silenced by other women.
Not with fists.
But with sideways glances.
With “I thought you were over that.”
With “Don’t bring that up again, you’ll ruin everything.”
With “He’s changed now.”
With “You’re gonna make us look bad.”
With “We just want peace.”
But what they’re really saying is:
We want her silence more than we want her healing.
We want his reputation more than we want her restoration.
Sisterhood was never meant to be a gag order.
It was never meant to be the place where wounds are told to hush.
Where pain is hidden for the sake of appearances.
Where truth is sacrificed on the altar of someone else’s comfort.
And yet, too many of us know this kind of silence intimately.
Not because we wanted it, but because it was demanded of us.
In churches.
In families.
In activist spaces.
In “empowerment” groups.
Sometimes it’s the elder. Sometimes it’s the favorite friend. Sometimes it’s the “feminist” who bends all her principles to protect the same kind of harm she claims to fight against.
But let me say this:
🤎 Telling a woman to silence her truth is not love.
🤎 Punishing a woman for surviving out loud is not solidarity.
🤎 Shaming a woman into secrecy is not sisterhood. It’s betrayal dressed in soft words.
If your version of “keeping it together” requires her to come undone,
it was never a bond.
It was a bargain.
And those of us who have walked through fire without protection,
who told the truth anyway,
who survived the shame others tried to wrap around us like chains—
we know better now.
We know that real sisterhood listens.
Real sisterhood protects the vulnerable, not the violent.
Real sisterhood honors truth, even when it’s inconvenient.
Because if we want to be women who really show up for each other,
we must be brave enough to break the silence
before the silence breaks her.
Let her speak.
Let her be angry.
Let her tell the story.
Even if it shakes the room.
Even if it rattles the lies.
Even if it costs you the approval of those who’ve built power on other women’s pain.
Because trust me: if the sisterhood is built on secrets, it’s already crumbling.
