“Your life is always speaking to you. It speaks in whispers, guiding you to your next right step. And in many situations, the whisper is also the first warning. 

It's a quiet nudge from deep within saying, Hmm. Something feels off. It's a small voice that tells you this is no longer your place of belonging. 

It's the pit in your stomach or the pause before you speak, it's the shiver, the goosebumps that raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Whatever form the whisper takes, it is not a coincidence your life is trying to tell you something”

~ Oprah Winfrey ~

This is my story of joining a feminist business and online community and ignoring the subtle whispers that warned me something wasn’t right. By the time I finally paid attention, those whispers had become a full blown scream.

I’m sharing these experiences so that if you ever find yourself in a similar space, you’ll listen to your inner voice. Don’t repeat my mistakes. Don’t give so-called leaders the benefit of the doubt when your intuition tells you otherwise. The whispers will get louder, and eventually, the scream will be impossible to ignore.

Five lessons from ignored whispers

Here are the whispers I ignored and five lessons I learned from ignoring the early warnings from an online feminist course and community. These reflect the actions of the community’s leader, and how I continued to support a space that was not as inclusive, feminist, or anti-racist as it claimed to be.

Whisper one: Paying for community, but not paying the community

I first joined the community when I was looking to improve my public speaking skills for a work presentation. I found a confidence-building course for women and signed up. I participated in their Zoom calls, watched the pre-recorded videos, did the homework and engaged in the course’s online community.

The course itself was a bit underwhelming for the cost—mostly recycled content and recommendations for YouTube videos and books. Despite this, I was drawn to the community. The participants were thoughtful, engaging, and genuinely passionate about creating positive change in the world. I decided to stay.

But once the six-week course ended, we were asked to start paying a monthly subscription fee to remain in the alumni community (around £30). This was when the first whisper emerged. Something felt off. Why was I paying to stay in a community when the platform itself wasn’t expensive to maintain? I’d also paid a fair amount for the course. But I thought the subscription was paying those who were running the groups and sessions on the platform.

The troubling whisper came when I realised that the people running the events and groups I attended weren’t being paid for their time. The community was valuable to me, but I mistakenly assumed that part of my subscription fee went toward compensating those who were actually doing the work. It didn’t.  I’ve joined courses and bought programs and the online community space was always free and came as part of the course -looking back, the moderators of these spaces were paid employees - I began wondering what it was that I’d been paying for. 

The business had made over a million in revenue at this point - the leader had published this on her platforms - yet the individuals organising the events and groups weren’t paid. That first whisper told me something wasn’t right but I ignored it.

Whisper two: Suppressing negative feedback

The second whisper came when I saw how the community leader dealt with criticism and feedback. A woman I knew posted about her negative experience in the community, only to have her comments deleted without explanation. When she contacted the leader for clarity, she was told that the community wasn’t the place for negative feedback.

I was somewhat shocked. The community, which prided itself on fostering confidence and encouraging women to speak up, was actively censoring criticism. More troubling, this wasn’t an isolated incident. I’d seen other women’s concerns dismissed, their posts erased, and eventually, they left the space without a word.

Women who had once been put on pedestals vanished from the platform without explanation. Other people’s questions were completely ignored.

I saw various women ask for awareness about their (fairly simple) needs in the community and they were ignored, comments deleted, their needs unmet. I could go into detail here about what I saw, but these aren’t my stories to tell.

By deleting negative comments and refusing to engage with critical feedback, the community was sent a clear message: dissent wasn’t welcome. This blatant delete, block, remove policy should have been enough to make me leave, but I stayed, hoping things would change. They didn’t.

Whisper three: ‘Doublethink’

The third whisper led on from the second. I started noticing contradictions between the community leader’s outward messaging and her internal actions. The business leader preached transparency and honesty, encouraging women to speak openly about their successes and failures, she supported whistleblowers and pushed us to speak out in our work and home lives. However, behind closed doors, their actions didn’t match their words.

At first, I thought I was alone in noticing these inconsistencies. But when I met other community members in person, they shared similar concerns. They, too, felt something was off but were hesitant to speak out. The whisper grew louder. I began to realise that this space, which urged women to embrace honesty and question authority, was not open to scrutiny when it came to its own leadership.

It reminded me of Orwell’s concept of ‘Doublethink’—the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. The leaders encouraged us to "be honest" but censored those who tried to express concerns in the community. They asked us to speak up and question those in power in our lives, yet rebuffed any questions from the community. They promoted women making as much money as they could, yet refused to pay women for their labour. 

Be honest! But not with us

Make money! But not from us 

Question those in power! But not us 

Whisper four: Exploiting women's voices for profit

Another troubling whisper came when I discovered that the words spoken by women in the community were being used on merchandise and promotional materials—without their permission. Quotes and empowering statements made by members during online discussions in the community were printed on items like mugs and notebooks which were then sold for profit. These were also shared in online marketing materials. None of the women whose words were used saw any compensation or recognition. All the profits went directly to the business.

What was particularly disturbing was the way the community leader framed this: as if these products and marketing materials were a celebration of women’s empowerment. In reality, it was a blatant exploitation of our words and experiences for commercial gain. The business had marketed itself as feminist, yet it was profiting off the very voices it claimed to uplift—without even asking for consent. This was another clear example of how the business prioritised its bottom line over the genuine well-being and integrity of the community it claimed to support.

Whisper five: The conference—A lesson in selling insecurity

The final whisper came during a conference organised by the business. I had paid a significant amount of money to attend the dinner beforehand and the conference on the day, and invested a lot of time and energy to attend. I flew from Amsterdam to Glasgow, arranged childcare, and took time off work. But from the moment I arrived, it was clear that the event was more about making money than fostering genuine connection or learning.

The venue was cold and uncomfortable, with inadequate food and poor accessibility. The focus on stage wasn’t on creating a meaningful experience for attendees—it was on selling more courses. Added to this, speakers shared brutally honest life stories with no warning to the content. It felt as though the organisers were preying on both the speakers’ and attendees’ insecurities. Seeing the hypocrisy unfold before my eyes was different from witnessing it online. It was a harsh reminder that this business, which marketed itself as safe and empowering, was more concerned with profit than people.

When I returned home, I quietly distanced myself from the community. I stopped using the community platform, attending events and groups and eventually, I left altogether. The whispers had turned into a scream, and I could no longer ignore them.

A collective stand for change

The final whisper became a scream when others in the community began to realise what was happening. After I left, many community members read an article by a former employee that didn’t name the community directly, but its content struck a nerve. The behaviours described felt all too familiar, and people quietly wondered if it was about this community. When people asked the leadership directly on the community platform, they were immediately thrown out without explanation. It became clear that many had wanted to voice similar concerns but had been too afraid of repercussions - like me. The leader’s actions here made it pretty clear what the repercussions would be.

In response, a group of us—current and former community members, as well as some former employees—came together. We shared our stories, reflected on our disappointments, and discussed the discrepancies between the leadership’s stated values and their actual behaviour. Members began to acknowledge their repressed concerns—about how the leadership dealt with issues within the space. This was not the community we had signed up for. We decided to act.

After a lot of work, we compiled a document outlining the changes we wanted to see. We presented it to the business owner and community leader, requesting that they address these issues and align their actions with their promises. This collective effort took time and energy but it was necessary to bring about the change we had been looking for. When we heard nothing back, we decided to go public. I won’t go into the details of how this was received since it led to threats of legal action, but safe to say it didn’t end well, we attempted to make constructive change, providing feedback, and we were shut down.

Final thoughts…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it’s the importance of listening to those early warnings—the whispers. When something feels off, it usually is.

A space that encourages questioning and speaking out should be able to handle feedback, even when it’s uncomfortable. A community that values inclusion should prioritise the wellbeing of its members, not just its profits.

Don’t wait until the whispers become a scream. Trust yourself, and walk away and take action when your intuition tells you something isn’t right. I’d ignored the whispers, and I reflected on why I waited until the shout to eventually take action.

When evaluating any community, it’s essential to examine how marginalised people—especially Black women - are treated. Their experiences often reveal the true nature of a space’s commitment to inclusivity and equity. If these voices are ignored, dismissed, or exploited, it shows that the community is failing to live up to its stated values.

Ignoring the whispers or turning a blind eye to injustice allows harmful systems of exclusion to continue. True anti-racism and inclusion demands that you not only listen to the voices but actively challenge the structures and behaviours that silence them.

I’ve learnt lessons here but I’m still learning, I’ve felt completely disillusioned by women led spaces but I’ve also had some faith restored by the group that emerged to take action. We were the community I thought I’d signed up for.