What Compels Us To Speak Out, Or Tell Our Stories?

And what are the costs when we do?

I’m reading two books at the moment, actually make that three because yesterday I finished reading a brilliant one that I must tell you about. It is called Nesting, and it is by Roisin O’Donnell. O’Donnell is a short story writer and she was commissioned to write a 3,000 word short story on the theme of independence. What started as just a few thousand words expanded – with her research – into this stunning novel.

My friend sent it to me for my birthday a few weeks ago because she had read a brilliant review of it in The Times. I have since read a brilliant review in The Guardian, although I have to say that I was a little wary of the subject matter: woman leaves emotionally (and otherwise) abusive husband, tries to hold her life together as a single mother, alone and pregnant and then faces the horror that is family court – as if life weren’t bad enough. Sometimes these themes, though I may touch on them here, are a little too close to the bone for me to read about in fiction or watch on film, particularly as I can be over-critical of them — it’s not like that, he wouldn’t say that, she’s got that bit wrong, etc etc.

Yet this novel, I cannot fault. It has inspired me to go back to my own novel – though first I have a memoir to write. But anyway, back to the question I posed at the top of this page — what compels us to speak out, or tell our stories?

Nesting might have been a work of fiction but, as the author writes in her acknowledgements, it was very much based on the testimonies of real life women. And so what I got from those women speaking to O’Donnell – although those women in question might never know – was solidarity, was a container for some of my own experiences, was a sense of sisterhood, was a character to root for, was an acknowledgment in a way of some of the struggles I had been through.

That’s what women speaking out gives us.

Now I’ve finished Nesting, I’ve turned to two other books. One is Melissa Febos’ Body Work – The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, as recommended in a note posted by

Caro Clarke

and I am very much enjoying it so far. There was a paragraph in it that leapt out to me:

A memoir is a diorama of experience, populated only partially with the memories we carry to the desk. Part of the work of writing it is that of completing that diorama with many of the memories and experiences that we did not have access to during the events that we describe.

It is true, what comes after does shape how we view the before. For example, in Nesting, the protagonist is only able to recognise the true nature of the abuse she had received within the relationship once she is out of it and experiences the fear she felt again with fresh eyes. It is then that she tells someone – something we have been screaming at the book for her to do all along. It is obviously sharing her story, speaking out, which gets her the help she so desperately needs.

I’m also listening to a new Tortoise podcast investigation called Lucky Boy at the moment. The first episode features the story of a man, around 50 now, who when he was a schoolboy had an affair with a young and attractive teacher at his school. I described it like that only because that was how he and his peers had thought of it then, but of course as a man he can see that he was not a ‘lucky boy’, he was groomed, she was in a position of power and responsibility, he was a child she took advantage of. Hindsight, age and experience have changed how he sees that story.

I’ve also, just today, started listening to Jennifer Cox’s Women Are Angry, a book I have been meaning to read for months now, and Jennifer of

Women Are Mad with Jen&Salima

introduces the book by saying that in her therapy rooms she hears the stories of women and what many of them have in common is this bubbling anger that they have at the world, perhaps this is because they have internalised pain, because they have not spoken out, because they have not told their stories and I guess that’s what they are going to do there in that therapy room. I shall have to read on.

A friend of mine spoke out about a man and his bad behaviour a few months ago on national television and her face was in all the papers for days. I saw the cost for her in speaking out, but I also saw her burning desire to right a wrong that had been done to her and many others. Again, as the Melissa Febos quotes goes, she only recognised and completed her own story with the experiences she did not have at the time.

Many of us have spoken out here on Substack, or on other social media. Last night I hosted a workshop on zoom teaching four women how they can tell their stories and sell their Substack pieces to magazines and newspapers. More than anything (apart from the practicalities of doing so) what they needed was permission to do so, to rid themselves of imposter syndrome, to remind themselves that what they know about the world is vast, is helpful and is relevant to others. They left all the more confident for realising that.

Speaking out is not for everyone. Often I get direct messages from women who still feel they cannot say what they really think about difficult subjects, or even their own lives. It is a personal decision. Not everyone feels that compulsion to tell their story, not everyone can act on the desire to do it. People, especially women I think, must come to it in their own time.

And when they do, they must prepare for the consequences — both good and bad. But what they might find is what I found in that novel: solidarity, recognition, understanding.

But this is a subject worth spending some more time on, and so, on that note, I have something rather exciting to tell you. This Friday (28th), at 12pm GMT,

Suzanne Moore

and I will be doing a Substack Live to talk about just this – the cost to women for speaking out. It will be an informal conversation and we welcome you to drop in if you can. We also welcome hearing anything else you would like us to discuss during our chat. But do come along, or catch up afterwards. The recording will definitely be available for paid subscribers. And if you want to make sure you receive it in your inbox, you can upgrade here:

I think it’ll be a fascinating chat, and let’s face it, we won’t be short of material because between now and then, who knows which woman might speak out, might do her bit to change the world, or at least the world within her own wingspan. Because I think that this is the main reason that women speak out, to see a change for good. And that has to make it worth it whatever the consequences — to be discussed!

See you Friday!