ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses silence, voice and empowerment, and how these arcane concepts are brought down to earth by the women in the Radio Research Group. It offers some thoughts on radio as a metaphor for women’s muted societal presence and analyses more reasons for women’s silence, low confidence and barriers to engaging with community radio. Misogyny is an immense factor in women’s silence. The women in the Radio Research Group discuss the barriers to their engagement in radio training and how and why they feel silenced, unconfident and diminished. Gender, ‘race’ disability and other factors intersect, but class, language and accent are also important. The importance of radio as a means of egalitarian dialogue is paramount, because in a world where women are seen and not heard, radio hides the body, but elevates the speaker: ‘the contributions to dialogue are valued according to the validity of the argument, rather than the position of power of the speaker’.
