Why I’m centring women’s voices

A considered choice

I want to be clear about something from the outset. This podcast is mostly about women.

That doesn’t mean men aren’t welcome. Some will absolutely be part of these conversations. But the focus is deliberate. It exists because women’s voices have historically been marginalised, softened, interrupted, edited down, or rewritten. That pattern is long-standing, well documented, and still very much with us.

How women are taught to speak

From an early age, many women are taught not just how to speak, but how to manage themselves as they do so. We learn to qualify our opinions, soften our delivery, and apologise in advance for taking up space. We are encouraged to be agreeable rather than authoritative, polite rather than direct, accommodating rather than assertive.

This conditioning is often subtle; it’s cultural rather than explicit, but its effects accumulate over time.

Where this shows up culturally

These habits do not stay confined to childhood. Far from it. They carry through into adult life and show up in meeting rooms, classrooms, publishing, politics, media, and the arts. They shape who feels entitled to speak, whose confidence is praised, and whose anger is dismissed.

They also influence which stories are framed as universal and which are labelled niche, emotional, or secondary. Creatively and culturally, women’s stories are still too often treated as personal rather than political, experiential rather than intellectual.

Why this matters now

Around the world, women’s rights are under pressure. Hard-won protections around bodily autonomy, safety, education, work, and representation are being rolled back, challenged, or quietly eroded. At the same time, the language of empowerment is frequently diluted, used as branding rather than as a genuine challenge to power.

In this climate, voice becomes more than expression: it becomes a question of authority. It’s about who is listened to. It’s about who is believed and who is allowed to speak without qualification.

Centring women’s voices is not exclusion

For me, centring women’s voices is not about exclusion, but about creating a space for women and their stories to be heard.

It is about creating a space where women do not have to compress their thinking, manage their tone, or borrow authority in order to be taken seriously.

I’m interested in women who have had to navigate silencing, constraint, or expectation, and who have found ways to speak anyway. Women who have pushed past internalised limits or external barriers to find purpose, meaning, or creative expression on their own terms.

Often, these are elders of female experience. Not necessarily by age, but by depth. The wisdom they can pass on comes from what they have lived through, questioned, and learned. And by the clarity that comes from surviving, reflecting, and choosing to speak honestly.

What this podcast is really about

This podcast is about understanding how voice is shaped by culture, history, and power, and about what becomes possible when women stop managing themselves and start speaking as they are. I feel this is very necessary. Especially now.