I remember sitting there thinking: did no one hear me? But the truth is, I was heard. I just wasn’t listened to.

That moment, that strange, quiet invisibility, isn’t rare. It’s something women experience constantly. At work, in classrooms, in conversations. And every time it happens, someone says, “You just need to be louder.”

But what if the problem isn’t our volume? What if the problem is you’re not really listening?

The root of the problem

Let’s start with what we’re taught, not directly, but through everything we see.

From early on, the world sends us signals. Boys are expected to speak up. Girls are expected to stay polite. We see it in movies where the leader, the genius, the one with the final say is almost always a man. We hear it at home where dads often have the loudest voice at the table and have the final say where daughters get praised for being well-behaved. 

When we grow up, that message doesn’t go away. It just puts on a blazer. In the workplace, in politics, in meetings, there’s still this unspoken rule that male voices carry more weight. 

Take the infamous moment at the 2020 Vice Presidential debate, for example. Senator Kamala Harris found herself being repeatedly interrupted by then-Vice President Mike Pence. Finally, she turned to him and said, clearly and firmly: “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking. I’m speaking.”

At that time, millions of women didn’t just hear her, they felt her. Because they’ve had to say it too.  The data is damning. In US congressional committee hearings, women are more likely to be interrupted than men, especially in the Senate, where they face about 10% more interruptions overall. Here in the UK, it’s no different. Deloitte’s Women @ Work report found that women experience higher rates of microaggressions, including being interrupted.

But even when women do speak up, when they go against all that conditioning, they're judged more harshly for it. A Stanford study found that when women interrupt using the exact same language as men, male listeners perceive them as ruder, colder, and less competent. Not because of what they’re saying. But because they’re the ones saying it.

The power of listening

Listening is not the same as hearing. Hearing is passive, it’s noise in the background.

Listening is active. Intentional. Transformational. It means creating space for someone else’s perspective, especially when it challenges your own. And the truth is, in most rooms, women are being heard, but they’re not being listened to.

The environments that thrive are the ones where listening isn’t just encouraged, it’s expected. Google’s Project Aristotle found that the highest-performing teams weren’t defined by talent or experience but by one thing: psychological safety. In other words, everyone felt heard. Everyone mattered.

When women are genuinely listened to, the impact is undeniable:

• Companies with over 30% women executives are 39% more likely to outperform their peers in profitability
• Teams with senior women in finance report 45% of revenue from innovation, nearly double that of less diverse teams
• Gender-balanced leadership results in twice the employee retention, and 71% higher employee loyalty

This is about listening to ideas that would otherwise go unheard and realising they were the key to progress all along. Because when women speak, they often bring empathy, collaboration, long-term thinking, and a different kind of intelligence, one that doesn’t always shout to be heard. But if we’re only tuned into the loudest voices in the room, we’ll keep missing the ones with the most to say.

So no, women don’t need to be louder. We need to redefine what we value. Leadership isn’t volume. Authority isn’t dominance. And confidence doesn’t have to come with a raised voice.

And when we choose to listen, we don’t just empower women. We elevate everyone.

How to listen

So how do we actually get better at listening, not just to women, but to everyone whose voice is too often sidelined? Here’s how we start:

1. Listen to understand, not to respond

Most people listen with one goal: to reply. Real listening means pausing your agenda, resisting the urge to fix or debate, and instead asking: What is this person trying to say? What matters to them? That shift alone changes everything.

2. Notice who’s not speaking, and make space

In group settings, it’s easy for dominant voices to take over. Look around. Who hasn’t spoken? Who’s being talked over? If you have power in a room, use it to amplify others. 

Say: "I’d love to hear what [she] thinks."  Sometimes inclusion is just an invitation.

3. Don’t assume quiet means nothing to say

Some people process before speaking. Others wait until they feel safe.

If a woman (or anyone really) is quiet, it might not mean disengaged, it might mean the room hasn’t shown it’s worth the risk yet. Create space, don’t fill it. That’s leadership.

4. Validate without hijacking

If someone shares an experience, especially around bias or being dismissed, don’t pivot to your own. Say, “That makes sense,” or “Thank you for sharing that.” Validation doesn’t require you to have lived it. Just to respect it.

5. Diversify who you listen to

Actively seek out voices outside your norm. Not just when it’s Women’s History Month or DEI Week. Read books by women. Follow thinkers of colour. Engage with people from different lived experiences. The more perspectives you listen to, the more expansive your own thinking becomes.

Final thoughts

Listening isn’t passive. It’s a skill. A muscle. A practice. If we want to build inclusive spaces – at work, at home, in society – we start by listening like it matters. Because it does.