Your Voice Is Your Power
March kicks off Women’s History Month and this year’s theme is Your Voice is Your Power. We caught up with LaDonna Witmer Willems, one of the new Co-Leads of Women@ to hear what the theme means to her.
“Women today may not be entirely voiceless, but when we do speak… a shiver runs down the collective spine of Western civilization.”
-Veronica Rueckert in Outspoken: Why Women’s Voices Get Silenced and How to Set Them Free
Women are no strangers to silence. Many of us have been conditioned, from a very early age, to take a seat, to raise our hands, to defer, to apologize, to shrink.
Even the most accomplished, most outspoken, most self-aware among us still end up silencing ourselves, often without even realizing what we’re doing. For so long, we’ve internalized the message that our voices aren’t welcome, and we begin to wonder, sometimes, if we even have anything to say, or if there’s anyone out there who wants to hear it.
In 2012, American Political Science Review conducted a study to see what happens to women’s voices during collaborative discussions. They found that when men outnumbered women (which is still true of most board rooms), women spoke less than 75% of the time than their male counterparts.
Having a voice means having power. The power to be seen, to be connected, to make a difference. In her infamous essay, Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit writes, “Having the right to show up and speak are basic to survival, to dignity and to liberty.”
I grew up in a small farm town in northern Illinois where everyone was white, conservative, and un-wealthy. My family attended a small, very fundamentalist brand of church, and for 13 years, I was sent to the private school associated with it. In that insular world, women — the good, exemplary, you-should-be-more-like-her women — were sweet, submissive, and silent. They played the piano and led Sunday School lessons for children, but were never allowed to stand in the pulpit and teach the congregation. In that world, women had a place, and that place was secondary.
Even now, states and decades removed from that way of thinking, I still find myself struggling with a deeply internalized message of silence and submission. So when I hear, “Your voice is your power,” I hear that my voice matters. I hear that my story is valid. I hear that I have permission to speak.
My wish, this Women’s History Month, is that all women at Dropbox internalize a new message. A message of bravery and freedom and empowerment. My wish is that we all find our voices, lift them up, and set them free.
