As Women, Do We Inherit The Silence Too?

“I felt the need to cover my body and to inhibit my expression… so that I would be worthy of safety and respect.” — Natalie Portman, Women’s March, 2018.

Natalie Portman’s stark recollection of being sexualised at 13 was not just a celebrity anecdote. It was a mirror held up to a culture that raises girls to shrink themselves before they even know what power feels like. When a girl becomes a woman, the world doesn’t clap; it closes in. From magazine reviews commenting on her “budding breasts” to radio hosts counting down to her 18th birthday, the message is clear: a woman’s body is not her own. It is a public countdown, a marketing tool, a threat.

In a world that can now engineer synthetic embryos and code artificial empathy into machines, how ironic that it still struggles to let women own their bodies, voices, and space. This contradiction isn’t poetic — it’s oppressive.

Despite four waves of feminism, women today often find themselves adapting and shifting for survival. You’re too assertive? Tone it down. Too curvy? Cover up. Too loud? Be quiet. Too ambitious? Be likeable. These aren’t just microaggressions; they’re coded instructions to disappear. To erase the jagged, rebellious, creative parts of yourself to become socially palatable.

We are told to lean in, but only if we don’t lean too far.

Digital Age, Same Old Cages

In an age of body positivity and viral feminism, you'd think the script had changed. But scroll through Instagram or LinkedIn, and the performance continues, just in new filters. Young women are curating not just feeds but entire personalities, not out of narcissism, but as survival mechanisms.

Every woman knows this: the smile at the man who makes her uncomfortable. The silence in the meeting room. The tweet was deleted before posting because it “might come off too much.” Even in digital freedom, we self-police.

Why? Because centuries of patriarchy taught us to.

Portman did what many girls instinctively learn to do: she covered herself, dimmed her light, avoided roles with physical intimacy, and tried to be “serious” and “nerdy” just to feel safe. She moulded herself to project an image not of talent or individuality, but of safety and non-threat. She shrank herself—creatively, emotionally, and physically—because the world around her punished fullness.

This is the script handed to women everywhere.

When Women Shrink Themselves

From the moment a girl is praised for being “quiet,” “obedient,” or “mature for her age,” she begins to internalise a chilling lesson: that her survival depends on how much space she does not take up. Don’t laugh too loudly. Don’t eat too much. Don’t argue too fiercely. Don’t dress like you’re asking for it. Don’t be too ambitious. Don’t, don’t, don’t.

But make no mistake—this shrinking isn’t an act of modesty. It’s an act of defence. When a woman hides her cleavage before a boardroom presentation, it isn’t because she lacks confidence—it’s because she’s calculating the risk of being undermined by her appearance. When a young girl lowers her voice to avoid being called “bossy,” it’s because she’s already seen how assertive women are punished. It’s learned caution disguised as personality.

We see it in politics, where women candidates are advised to lower their pitch or smile more. In classrooms, boys interrupt girls three times more often. In film, leading actresses are called “difficult” for demanding pay equal to their male co-stars. In homes, daughters are told to be accommodating, and sons to be bold.

Even the language around women is built to contain them. A man is “assertive,” a woman is “aggressive.” A man is “confident,” a woman is “arrogant.” A man “leads,” a woman “bosses around.” And when she dares to call out injustice, she’s “too sensitive” or “playing the victim.”

It’s not just society doing the shrinking. Eventually, women begin to do it to themselves. Like Portman, many start performing safety dressing more modestly, speaking less, smiling more, because it feels like the only way to move through the world without constant friction. The burden of protection falls on the woman, not on the system that endangers her.

But shrinking doesn’t keep women safe. It only keeps them silent. And silence is precisely what allows the cycle to continue.

What happens to a woman’s dreams when she spends all her energy managing other people’s comfort? What happens to her voice, her art, her rage, her joy, when her primary goal is not to provoke? What brilliance have we lost—not because women lacked talent, but because they were too busy dodging threats and judgments?

The cost of this constant self-containment is staggering, and it’s invisible until someone, like Portman, names it out loud. She named the environment “sexual terrorism.” She named the coercive comments that shaped her choices. She named the fear that many girls never learn to articulate. And in doing so, she reclaimed something that had been quietly taken from her.

When she stood on stage at the Golden Globes and said, “And here are the all-male nominees,” she wasn’t just pointing out an omission. She was taking up space. She was unshrinking.

We must ask: What if girls grew up believing they deserved to take up space? What if women didn’t have to prove their humanity by shrinking their desires, their voices, their bodies, and their presence? What would our world look like if safety weren’t earned through silence, but guaranteed by justice?

To be a woman in this world is to be handed a mask—smaller, quieter, more pleasing. But more and more women are refusing to wear it. They are speaking out, stretching their limbs, taking up space on stages, in streets, in boardrooms, and in ballots.

WHAT IF WOMEN WERE TOLD TO EXPAND, NOT SHRINK? AND THE WORLD WAS NEVER THE SAME AGAIN.

Views expressed by the author are their own.