For generations, women have been told who they are, what they should become, what they should endure, and what roles they should accept. Womanhood has often been explained by those outside of it, while the voices of women themselves were ignored, minimized, or erased.In this powerful recorded episode, we explore 10 ways men have tried to define womanhood and the lasting impact of those definitions on women’s choices, dignity, safety, and freedom.

Through the wisdom of courageous women, we examine what happens when women challenge the limits placed upon them. We reflect on the lives and words of Shirley Chisholm, a trailblazing politician who refused to let others decide the boundaries of her ambition; Elizabeth Packard, a woman who fought against the misuse of power that allowed husbands and institutions to silence women; and Susanna Madora Salter, one of the first women in the United States to serve as a mayor, who demonstrated that leadership was never reserved for men.

This episode is not only about history. It is about recognizing the patterns that continue today.Who gets to define women’s priorities?
Who decides what women should sacrifice?
Who determines when women are allowed to say no?
And what happens when women reclaim the authority to define their own lives?These stories remind us that every generation of women has had to defend the simple truth that women are human beings with their own minds, voices, dreams, boundaries, and purpose.Join us as we honor the women who refused to shrink, surrender, or disappear.

Their courage leaves us with a question for today:What would change if women and girls were finally trusted to define themselves?

Listen, reflect, and carry forward the lessons of the women who opened doors before us.

What happens when the desire to stand with others becomes a demand to disappear?

In this episode of We Survive Abuse, “The Empty Chair” explores the difficult space between compassion and self-erasure. We are taught that solidarity means showing up, standing together, and making room for others. But too often, women are asked to remove their own chair from the table entirely.

This story examines a truth we must be brave enough to face: solidarity is not the same as unrestricted access. Support does not require surrendering boundaries. Compassion does not require abandoning safety, dignity, privacy, or the hard-won lessons of generations before us.

The empty chair represents the space we leave behind when we are pressured to believe that our needs are selfish, our boundaries are cruel, or our protection must always come last. It asks a deeper question: Who benefits when women are praised for making themselves smaller? Through reflection, a short story, and a Survivor-centered lens, this episode invites listeners to examine the difference between genuine solidarity and the quiet sacrifice of self-abandonment. Because true solidarity does not ask people to vanish.

It does not demand that women give up their voices to prove they care. It does not require survivors to ignore what they know about safety. It does not turn compassion into compulsory access.

There is room at the table for others without removing yourself from it.The chair belongs to you, too.

The Gate That Didn't Trust Anyone
At first glance, it's just an old wooden gate.It squeaks when it opens. It always swings shut. It stands quietly between a flourishing garden and a busy road, asking nothing more than to be opened—and remembered.
As a child, it seemed unnecessary. Why build a gate if you trust your neighbors?

Years later, that simple question revealed a truth far bigger than the garden itself.

In this episode, we'll explore how one ordinary gate became a lesson about love, boundaries, and the quiet wisdom of protecting what is precious. Together, we'll discover why the strongest safeguards are not built from fear, but from care—and why the smallest acts of protection often carry the deepest expressions of love.This is a story about vegetables, a grandfather, and a gate.Or so it seems.

Come sit for a short bit, and let's see what was really growing behind that fence.

Some seasons are rougher than others.

Many Survivors learn the invaluable skill of not letting outside reactions decide what your experience with harm means. People may minimize, dispute, reframe, or overanalyze what you went through. It's easy to do that from the cheap seats.  
But survivorship requires a private anchor: what I lived is real even when it is not understood or believed.

In this short episode Tonya GJ Prince speaks directly to Survivors with validating affirmations.

What does it really mean to protect women? And who gets to decide when a woman's safety concerns are "serious enough" to matter?

In this episode, Tonya GJ Prince reflects on her experience as a court advocate, where she witnessed women being denied protective orders because they were perceived as "strong." The lesson was unmistakable: many women are expected to endure risk until they can prove they are in immediate danger.

Tonya challenges a culture that praises itself for inclusion while teaching men that they are entitled to be wherever women are—even when women express a need for boundaries, privacy, or safety. She argues that encouraging male entitlement to women's spaces is not an act of protection, no matter how noble it is portrayed.

This conversation explores female vulnerability, the reality of male violence, and why women should not have to justify their need for safety before they are taken seriously. If a woman must first prove danger to you before you will respect her boundaries, you are not acting as her protector—you are asking her to bear the burden of risk.

This episode is a call to rethink what protection actually requires: listening to women, respecting their boundaries, and recognizing that prevention begins long before harm occurs.

What Women Are Still Waiting to Hear

Why won't they say our names?

In an era when nearly every issue has a spokesperson, why do so many women and girls feel unheard when it comes to their safety, dignity, health, privacy, opportunities, and rights?

What are the simple truths that many women have been waiting for political leaders to say out loud?
Why do some issues affecting women seem to disappear into abstract language while the lived experiences of women and girls remain in the background?

And what does that silence communicate?

In this episode, we ask the questions that many women have been carrying for years. We explore the words that have gone unsaid, the acknowledgments that never came, and the leadership many women are still hoping to hear. This isn't just about political parties. 


It's about whether women and girls are named, seen, and recognized as human beings whose safety, dignity, and lives deserve clear and consistent leadership. Join me as we explore 26 things many women are still waiting to hear from those who seek to lead them. You may not agree with every question. But if you've ever wondered why so many women feel that something important is missing from our public conversations, this episode is for you.

Freedom has always had an important relationship with truth.

On Juneteenth, we remember a painful reality. Freedom had already been declared, yet many Black families remained in chains because the truth was delayed, withheld, and kept from them. The distance between freedom spoken and freedom lived carried consequences that echoed through generations.

Juneteenth teaches us something enduring. Truth may be delayed, buried, denied, or feared, yet it still carries power when it arrives. Healing begins when people dare to face what is real. Safety grows where honesty is practiced. Freedom deepens when truth finally has room to breathe.

This episode is a gentle invitation to move toward truth with courage, wisdom, and compassion for ourselves and one another.

Because sometimes the longest journey is the distance between what we sensed… and what we finally allow ourselves to name.

Some people do not grow, evolve, and change. They rebrand. In this episode of the We Survive Abuse Podcast, Tonya GJ Prince explores a familiar pattern in abuse, sexism, and misogyny: the person who reinvents themselves just enough to escape responsibility while still participating in the same culture of silencing violence and abuse against women and girls.

Through the short fable The Man Who Changed His Coat, this episode examines how harmful people often trade in old language for softer words, new identities, cleaner images, spiritual vocabulary, public innocence, or claims of growth without doing the hard work of repair. Because a new coat is not the same as a changed heart.

This conversation is for survivors, advocates, truth-tellers, and anyone who has watched someone cause violence and abuse, rename themselves, refuse accountability, and then accuse women of being divisive for remembering the stones. We are talking about self-exemption, silence, reinvention, bystanderism, and the dangerous lie that “I am not that man anymore” should end the conversation. At We Survive Abuse, we do not confuse image repair with transformation. 

For most people, true transformation is indeed possible, but we listen for the truth beneath the costume.

Some songs are bigger than their chart position.

In this episode Tonya GJ Prince gets personal with a look at Billy Joel’s “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” and the little-known purpose behind the song: a message of hope for young people facing shame, despair, and thoughts of self-harm.

We also revisit the spirit of Casey Kasem’s radio era, when countdowns were not only about numbers, but about listener stories, dedications, memory, and the human lives attached to music. This is part music history, part cultural reflection, and part love letter to young people who are growing up in a world that measures almost everything by numbers: followers, streams, likes, rankings, relevance, and reach.

But like human beings, music was never meant to be only a scoreboard. Music is an art form that can become the voice in the night. It can say what hurting people may not yet know how to say out loud: “I hear you. I see you. There is a way through.”

This episode invites listeners to remember the soul of music, the power of songs that help people hold on, and the truth that a life does not have to be popular to be precious.

Some people call it “nuance.”
Some call it “hearing all sides.”
Some call it “not rushing to judgment.”

But when endless debate leaves women and girls exposed, it is not wisdom. It is delay.

In this episode, we talk about the people and institutions that spend too much time camping in the grey area while women are told to doubt their feelings, soften their boundaries, question their instincts, and wait for protection that never comes.

Drawing from the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 21 about the two sons, we look at the difference between saying the right thing and doing the actual work. The son who sounded obedient did not go into the vineyard. The son who went did the will. That lesson still speaks.

A society does not get credit for saying it cares about women and girls while refusing to build guardrails. A community does not get credit for saying it believes Survivors while debating them out of their own warning signs. 

A church, school, family, movement, or institution does not get credit for “dialogue” when no safety plan follows. This teaching is for the women who have been told they were “overreacting.”

For the girls whose discomfort was explained away.
For the Survivors who were asked to keep talking while danger kept walking free.
For the safe adults who are done confusing endless discussion with protection.

Grey areas require lanterns to see clearly.
Grey areas require guardrails to protect women and girls.
Grey areas require action.

Bring a plan.
Bring protection.
Bring the work.

But do not bring another debate and call it safety.