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We live in a world full of constant noise and chatter. For a lot of us, silence can feel uncomfortable. But what if we could use the quiet to make us more assertive, particularly in the workplace?

Tahmima Anam is the author of The Startup Wife, a book about big ambitions, speaking out and standing up for what you believe in. For the past ten years, she has spent her time working in the world of tech startups, where she was often the only woman on the team.

She joined Andrea Catherwood on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour to discuss how she thinks women can use silence to their advantage. Keep reading for her advice...

“Instead of filling a silence, try to hold the silence,” says Tahmima. “It’s often our intuition to never let an awkward moment pass without somehow trying to make it better. So, try not to care whether everyone is sitting in silence, wondering what to say. It’s not your job to smooth things over.”

“One thing I find really difficult is having a totally passive face,” says Tahmima. “If I'm in a meeting, I feel that somehow, it is my duty to be like a social lubricant, almost weaving people's conversations together and being expressive.

“Try and hold yourself perfectly still in group situations, like meetings. Instead of nodding, smiling, or shaking your head, try and be perfectly still and don’t give anything away. When I did that, people asked me my opinion more often, because I wasn’t making it totally clear or easy for them to know what I was thinking.”

“When someone asks you a question, wait for three seconds before replying,” says Tahmima. “There’s something powerful about not feeling like you necessarily have to reply straightaway. You don’t have to be positive and make the person feel better about their question. I think women are naturally empathetic and we want to make people feel comfortable. But somehow in the workplace, that means that we get less of an opportunity to hold our power.

“It’s going to feel like a painfully long time, but it means you can take a moment to consider your response, rather than saying whatever comes into your head at the time. Your reply will have more power if it’s preceded by a pause.”

“Not laughing along with the joke is something that feels culturally inappropriate or like a taboo,” says Tahmima. “I started asking other women about sexist jokes in their workplaces and it was shocking to me. Almost every single woman I talked to said they’d experienced it and had laughed along but went home and felt bad about it.

“It’s really hard not to laugh along with everyone else when someone is telling a joke about their wife or girlfriend. You may wonder: ‘Am I just a killjoy? Shouldn’t I just join in?’

“But we need to change the norms of office life and make things like sexist jokes a thing of the past. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. Just resist the urge to laugh along with everyone else.”

“You don’t owe anyone a pleasant, smiling exterior unless you are a toothpaste model,” says Tahmima. I think we feel we have to please others in order to succeed in the workplace, and that we're not just judged on the merit, productivity, or the content of our work, but on how comfortable we make other people feel.

“Practice having a neutral face – not pleasing, not trying to smooth over awkward social moments - just your face, in all its resting glory.”

“I actually have mixed feelings about recommending to young women that they should be silent,” says Tahmima. “Because speaking out is absolutely, politically, our number one tool for creating institutional change.

“However, sometimes small cultural changes can have a really powerful impact. If women collectively felt that they didn't always have to be likeable at work and that they could hold silence instead of always feeling like they had to fill the silence, I think we could really change the expectations and pressures that are put on us in the workplace.”

Listen to the full interview with Tahmima Anam on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sounds, where you can also find every episode of Woman’s Hour you may have missed. Follow us on and @bbcwomanshour.