There’s a particular kind of silence that follows when you’re interrupted – the kind that makes you question whether you should have spoken at all.
I still remember sitting in a seminar, my palms sweating as I prepared to speak. I’d spent hours reading and crafting my thoughts, determined to push myself out of my comfort zone and finally share my perspective. The discussion centred around the public sphere in France – I began by laying out how it had functioned under the nobility, setting up the context before explaining how it later evolved.
But before I could move on to the second half of my argument, the professor cut me off. Dismissively. I was told I was wrong – not debated with, but corrected, as if I’d made a silly mistake. The tone was belittling enough to make me want to shrink into my chair. Minutes later, one of my male peers, in our predominantly male seminar, offered the exact same point. This time, he was praised, encouraged to elaborate, and thanked for his “insightful contribution.”
Ever been cut off or told to “shut up” by a man? Spoken over in a group presentation? Or felt that urge to soften your comment with a “but maybe I’m wrong,” just in case? It’s a quiet, familiar frustration -especially for women in male-dominated fields like history.
If you’ve ever sat through a seminar, heart racing with the right answer but too afraid to speak because you know you’ll be dismissed, doubted, or talked over, you’re not alone. And if you’ve ever seen the surprise on someone’s face when you do speak up, and get it right, you know exactly how heavy that silence can feel.
In history, there’s a particular group I’ve come to call the “War Boys.” They’re the ones who dominate class discussions with absolute confidence, ready to recite obscure facts about 18th-century artillery or military formations as if the rest of us are their audience. Sometimes, being one of the few women in that room feels like standing on the edge of a battlefield armed with a notebook and an apologetic smile.
When I’ve talked to other women about this, the stories echo each other. One of my friends in engineering laughed when I shared my experience: “Every time I speak in a lecture, I feel like I’m auditioning to be taken seriously,” she said. It’s a familiar kind of exhaustion, the mental gymnastics of balancing confidence with likeability, insight with caution, intelligence with humility.
And it’s not just in our heads. Research shows that men speak more frequently and for longer periods in university classrooms, while women are interrupted more often – even by other women. The result? A learning environment that subtly reinforces who gets to be heard and who doesn’t.
This isn’t to say all male professors or peers are out to silence women, many are allies who encourage us to speak and genuinely value our ideas. But it is important to acknowledge that these patterns exist, and that the challenges women face in academic spaces are real. They don’t make us weaker students – they make our successes even more remarkable.
These moments have made me more aware of the quiet resilience it takes for women to keep showing up – to still raise our hands, to still contribute, to still care deeply about our ideas even when it feels like the room isn’t built for us. Every time we speak up, even when our voices shake, we chip away at the silence that’s been standing for centuries.
I’ve also come to enjoy the shocked glances I get when I achieve major milestones – when I give a strong presentation, ace an essay, or receive recognition for my work. What used to feel patronising now fuels me. I play it to my strengths, knowing that every raised eyebrow is proof that I’m challenging expectations simply by succeeding.
I don’t share these experiences to condemn my university – in fact, it’s where I’ve found mentors and peers who’ve challenged and inspired me – but to highlight the quiet ways academic spaces still have room to grow.
Academia is meant to be about curiosity, questioning, and collaboration and that can only happen when every voice is truly heard.
I’ve been lucky to have professors who do make space for every voice and that gives me hope that the culture of the classroom can keep evolving. So maybe the next time I’m interrupted, I won’t shrink back. Maybe I’ll just take a breath and say what I’ve wanted to say all along:
“Actually, I was speaking.”