"Having a seat at the table, doesn't mean your real voice is actually welcomed"

Elaine Lin Hering takes a tender look at the drivers behind silence (known as absence of voice). Throughout each chapter she explores how silence was learnt and adopted via our family of origin, school, work and systems surrounding us. This internalised struggle has physical and mental health consequences,

This book made me grit my teeth, experience mental whiplash and cry. I see myself using mitigated speech, self doubt and mental tricks as part of an ongoing pattern which has affected my self esteem and leadership ability. Elaine has gently named the disconnect we experience during the trap door moments, whereby our input is not actually openly recieved or valued, despite being lured to the false sense of security.

"Rarely can one person alone define a culture. Yet everyone's behaviours either disrupt or perpetuate a culture of silence"
Often our silence desensitise us and we become implicit in a culture of silence. Over the last few days, I have reflected on the tensions between waiting for an invitation to speak up and the expectations of an individualistic capitalist society. This is also intersected by my own lived experiences and vigilance over ever changing rules governing my accepted behaviours. Silence is rarely just a human act, but also the systems we privledge such a time, location, persons invited to the conversation.

What I really like in part two of the book is the push towards intentional action and extending the invite to others in terms of accountability and also sharing a platform for voices. This has really helped me to put into action what I have noticed and processed, and has given me a sense of encouraging invitation to experiment with thoughts, language, and actions.

Some standout chapters for me
How we silence ourselves: the single loop learning, peer pressure, false peace.
How we silence others: How do we navigate valuing a person to valuing their opinion (especially if it does not align with our perspectives).
Change the system: once we see the processes, we cannot unsee this without active avoidance.

One of my favourite strategies is amplification: populaised by the Obama administration, where female staffers made a key point which is then repeated and credited to the original speaker. This practice forced men in the room to recognise the contribution and prevents disingenuous claims that the idea originated elsewhere.

This book gave me a lot of strength as I recently started to experiment with my voice, position. I have to admit, it wasn't