After publishing my book A Dance to Freedom, I learned something that no theory alone can teach.
It is safe to defend women who lived long ago.
It is dangerous to defend women who are alive.
This is the real, lived version of the Matilda Effect.
Not the one neatly summarized in academic articles, but the one that plays out quietly in workplaces, communities, and social hierarchies—where courage has consequences and silence is rewarded.
The Comfort of Defending the Past
A resident in the community where I once worked published a novel titled Shakespeare’s Conspirator, centered on a woman named Amelia, whom he argues may have authored many of Shakespeare’s works. It is a well-written and interesting book. Her story deserves to be told. Women erased from history deserve to be named.
But this is the part that matters:
Telling her story cost him nothing.
It earned him admiration.
It was intellectually safe.
It carried no personal risk.
Defending a woman who lived centuries ago does not threaten present power structures. It does not provoke retaliation. It does not invite isolation or punishment.
Standing up for a woman who is alive does.
What Silence Looks Like When You’re Inside the Storm
When I published my book, I was not met with debate or disagreement.
I was met with something else.
I was emotionally harassed for months. Targeted. Pressured. Provoked. The goal was clear: destabilize me emotionally so I could be framed as “mentally unstable” and my work discredited. Put the little woman back in her place.
Others saw this happening.
They did not speak.
Not because they didn’t understand.
Not because they didn’t see injustice.
But because they calculated risk.
One resident—who happened to be a woman—helped me get another job and offered real support. For that, she was targeted too. Her life was made difficult as punishment. Solidarity was treated as betrayal.
That is how systems enforce obedience:
not only by attacking the truth-teller, but by punishing anyone who dares to help.
The author of Shakespeare’s Conspirator stayed silent. Not because he approved of what was happening, but because he was afraid. Afraid of being next. Afraid of losing his standing. Afraid of being targeted.
I understand fear.
But silence is never neutral.
Intellectual Admiration Is Not the Same as Moral Courage
This is a distinction that matters deeply to me.
It is one thing to admire women rebels in history—women who challenged the status quo, broke molds, and paid the price. It is another thing entirely to stand next to a living woman while she is paying that price.
The first requires taste.
The second requires courage.
We live in a culture that rewards posthumous bravery and punishes present-day dissent. Truth is applauded once it is no longer dangerous. While it is alive, it is inconvenient—and often attacked.
This is why so many people praise women like Amelia today while remaining silent when living women speak truths that threaten comfort, hierarchy, or control.
The pattern is old. The faces change.
What Would Have Made the Difference
I did not need praise.
I did not need agreement.
I did not need rescuing.
I needed witnesses.
People willing to say: This is wrong.
People willing to absorb a little risk instead of none.
People willing to stand visibly, not silently.
That is the difference between intellectual ethics and lived ethics.
Why I Keep Writing About This
Some might read this and say I am bitter.
I am not.
I am clear.
Clarity comes after illusion breaks. After you see how often fear—not ignorance—keeps injustice in place.
Women who speak while alive pay the price.
Women who are silent are forgotten.
Women who are dead are celebrated.
I was alive. I spoke. And I paid the price.
That does not make me exceptional.
It makes the pattern visible.
The Real Question the Matilda Effect Asks
The Matilda Effect is not only about credit or recognition.
It asks a harder question:
Who are you willing to stand with when it costs you something?
History is full of brave admirers.
It is poor in contemporaneous allies.
I am still here.
Still writing.
Still seeing clearly.
And I will keep naming what silence tries to erase—because truth does not only belong to the past. It belongs to the present, whether people have the courage to face it or not.
What happened to me is not separate from what happened to Alice Miller—it is the same pattern, expressed in a smaller arena. Men took from her work, reframed it, corrected her, and demanded from her a perfection they never required of themselves—an unmistakable example of the Matilda Effect in action. The same logic applies here: it is safer to praise wounded women once they are distant, historical, or dead than to defend them while they are present, vulnerable, and threatening to the status quo. The Matilda Effect is not just about lost credit; it is about the cost of telling the truth as a woman in real time. Alice Miller paid that cost. I paid it too. And until society learns to stand with living truth-tellers instead of posthumously admiring them, the pattern will continue—quietly, predictably, and devastatingly.
This essay was written in collaboration with artificial intelligence (ChatGPT) as a tool for reflection, synthesis, and articulation. The responsibility for the ideas and interpretations expressed here remains my own.
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