ABSTRACT
An exploration of how the process or praxis of writing itself enacts journeys into, and out of, silence, this chapter looks at the contextual societal structures and power relationships within which women have conducted their lives, as workers, as writers and as readers. It notes the influence of these upon the self-silencing and self-censorship of marginalised young women, Irish women, women who are carers and working-class women. It considers the significance of Olsen’s ‘ironing board’ (1980a, b) in enabling both the liberation of the voice and formats for doing so, celebrating the fragmentary or fragmented. Guided by Federici’s ‘witch’: ‘the heretic, the healer, the disobedient wife, the woman who dared to live alone’ Federici (2014, 11), it examines the significance of confidence in enabling utterance. It thereby attempts to seek out and explore the quiet creative forces which are more usually stifled in order to function in contexts of intense strain, and which, when channelled, can lead to joy, celebration and empowerment.
