A word from the Author
as Told by Nthanda Manduwi
When we talk about women’s empowerment, I think we often imagine it as a finish line.
The moment when women finally get a seat at the table, step into leadership, and claim spaces once denied. But what happens after empowerment? What happens when women rise — only to discover that the floor beneath their feet is still sharp, brittle, and dangerous?
That is what I have come to call Walking on Glass Shells™.
This is the anchor theme of Feminine Silence. Because empowerment is more than just about voice — it is also about the terrain we’re forced to walk once we’ve spoken.
The Fragility of Progress
Glass shells are fragile. They crack under pressure. They cut when you step wrong. For many women, that’s exactly what navigating power feels like. You can enter the boardroom, you can launch the company, you can win the grant — but one misstep, one “too much” or “not enough,” and the punishment is swift.
Empowerment comes with constant calculations: tone down your voice to seem less aggressive, dress this way to be taken seriously, smile so they know you’re approachable, but not too much, or you won’t be respected. The shells are everywhere. And every step is a reminder that while the invitation may be extended, the ground was never rebuilt to hold us.
Why Men Matter Here
Here is where nuance is essential: women cannot walk this fragile ground alone. The shells are not ours to clean up by ourselves, because we did not break them alone.
For too long, the narrative has been that gender equity is a women’s issue — women’s work, women’s fight, women’s fire to carry. But men must be part of this story, too. Because silence, especially from those who hold power, is not neutral. It’s complicity.
When men choose to step in — not to lead for us, but to lead with us — the shells begin to clear. When they risk their comfort to amplify voices, when they refuse to let systems erase, when they embody partnership rather than dominance — the floor beneath us all becomes safer.
Engaging men is not about re-centering them. It is about asking them to finally share the weight of transformation.
Beyond Survival: Toward New Ground
Walking on glass shells is not about weakness. It is about courage. It is about resilience. It is about the invisible labor women carry in spaces not built for them. But courage should not be the price of belonging.
The vision of Feminine Silence is not just to name the shells, but to imagine a different ground. To move beyond fragile survival into sturdy, shared systems. Systems that recognize empathy as leadership. Systems that reward partnership over dominance. Systems that honor the wholeness of women and men alike.
Another world is possible. But only if we build it together.
An Invitation
So when you hear me speak about Glass Shells™, know this: it is not just a metaphor for women’s pain. It is a call to action. To notice the fragility beneath our supposed progress. To ask men to rise as partners, not spectators. To commit — all of us — to the harder, slower work of laying new ground.
Because empowerment without equity is unfinished. And silence, in the face of inequality, was never neutral.
This is the conversation Feminine Silence dares to begin.
Get Your Copy
Feminine Silence will become available on the 14th of September for purchase via Amazon. The journey of this book has only just begun, and we invite you to be part of it—whether by reading, sharing, or starting conversations in your own spaces.
