“When a woman is shamed and devalued in her community, she learns that the most traumatic events of her life will never be recognized as legitimate, and with that she learns there is no reason to speak them, that to do so might even be dangerous. Instead of reaching out, she is taught to reach in, conceal, pretend. When she internalizes this experience, she begins to enforce this silence in the women around her, teaching her daughters and granddaughters to do the same, a passing down of silence.”
