Systems Misread Resistance
- 3 hours ago
- 1 min read
Today’s reflection comes from Carla, an Abianda Trustee with over two decades of experience across safeguarding and the Violence Against Women and Girls sector. Her piece names how systems often misread young women’s resistance, and what becomes hidden when process, thresholds and professional language take precedence over listening, care and accountability.
I’ve sat with young women labelled as disengaged, resistant, hard to reach, when in reality they were calculating risk.
We often describe young women as ‘complex’. Rarely do we describe the systems around them as the same. ‘Hidden, But Not Silent’ reminds me that the voices aren’t missing, they’re buried under patriarchal frameworks, thresholds and professional language.
Systems can hide behind process but young women don’t have that luxury. They resist in ways that make sense for their context, through humour, withdrawal, defiance and protection. Harm doesn’t start and end in communities. It happens in policy, in language, in decisions made without them at the table.
Young women are not waiting to be saved. They are already resisting. Our responsibility is to ensure that resistance isn’t misread as pathology.
