If you’ve ever watched the film Call me By Your Name, the hauntingly unforgettable moment when Elio’s mother poses the question “Is it better to speak or to die?” Always sticks out. At first watch I thought the sentiment was overly exaggerated only to later on realise that this is the reality for so many girls around the world, to speak IS to die. From childhood, silence is the safer option. Speaking becomes risky, the chance of being dismissed, mocked, undermined or even punished becomes an everyday reality; harshly tucked away between the shadows of silence, to disappear. Those who fall out of line are branded; The ‘loud girl’, a double entendre, on the surface volumes matters, but break the ice and it’s the transgressions that truly count. SHE who laughs to brightly, SHE who argues relentlessly, SHE whose curiosity shakes mountains, SHE who wont falter under pressure.
Her loudness a blemish to the pristine image society prints out for her, a breach of the unspoken contract that feminist should be soft, small and easily contained. Living in a world that thrives on women’s silence, to be loud is to survive, insisting to be heard in a culture that demands you to be muted, a futile device you cling to when all that makes you, you is threatened to be stripped away.
Beneath the back handed compliments, and the snide laughs, the sirens blare; “LOUD”. Judgement disguised as praise, but we all know what that really means, you’re too assertive, opinionated, unfiltered, and goodness forbid you, a WOMAN, is unwilling to prioritise the comfort of others over the truth of your own voice.
Loudness becomes social static — proof that a girl has slipped out of her assigned frequency. As girls are taught that their value lies in being palatable, the accusation of loudness, that slip up, starts to feel like a moral falling. You who has spoken out of turn. Then starts the suppression, the swallowed sentences, the instinct to apologise before expressing a thought.But funnily enough society ends up depending on these loud girls even as it disciplines them. Relies on them on to call out injustices that others would rather ignore, refusing to let discomfort disguise itself as harmony, the truth becomes more important than conformity, more important than decorum. Trust that this irony isn’t lost on me. You can see this everywhere you look, every nook and cranny; a classroom where one girl keeps raising her hand even when the room shifts uncomfortably, or a meeting where a woman insists on finishing her sentence despite being interrupted. In perseverance there is resistance, there is revelation. The smallest of courage to stand against a crowd, when every sign tells you to stop. And if you watch carefully, you’ll notice that the room always changed a little every time she speaks.