When I agreed to speak at marie claire’s International Women’s Day event in early 2024, I thought it would be simple. A 15-minute Q&A about my experiences as a woman of colour in a front-facing media role seemed straightforward, and it was ground I’d covered before.
A few high-profile women from other arenas were also being interviewed, so it was an honour to be included. What I wasn’t prepared for was Anna Coutts-Trotter. The co-founder of The Survivor Hub and daughter of MP Tanya Plibersek spoke of escaping a physically and emotionally abusive relationship in her teens with such unflinching courage that the room fell silent.
The raw way she and Tanya shared their perspectives on the same experience as mother and daughter didn’t just move me, it split me open, unearthing something I had spent years trying not to name. Rationally, I knew where I was: a public room full of media and high-profile women.
This was not the moment for my own buried trauma to surface, for others in the room to realise that maybe I identified with the subject matter a little too closely.
I tried to maintain a steady face as emotion swelled to the surface. Sitting behind me was poet Kirli Saunders, whom I had met only that morning. She had just shared her searingly beautiful poetry on stage. Without even turning around, she reached out and held my hand, offering support as I silently wept through the rest of the conversation. Later, when we were reminded that one in five women have experienced sexual violence, the number resonated profoundly.
I’d heard it before, but now it felt like a mirror. I looked across the audience and wondered how many more women in this room carried silent pain. How many had never spoken aloud what had been done to them? It was in that moment that I recognised the depth of my own repression.
Even though I had said no, even though he forced himself on me, I had never named it for what it was: rape. I had internalised the notion that my silence was a requisite for acceptance. I remained quiet because he was in the industry and because I didn’t want to be dismissed as naive or weak. I had worked so hard to be “one of the boys”, to be respected, to belong.
I didn’t want to be tethered to being a stupid little girl. And yes, it’s fucked up to say, but I believed silence was the only way to survive. Yet on that International Women’s Day, it finally sank in that I was a survivor too. And I had a long journey ahead to acknowledge what had happened.
That reckoning brought me back to the thing that’s always anchored me: food. In a world that often feels chaotic and uncertain, food has been a constant source of comfort, belonging and grounding. I’ve always held food in such high esteem because even if you don’t have the words you know its power.
I’ve built a career on sharing its magic and meaning, its capacity to transmit memory, convey culture and narrate identity. Food is how culture travels and how identity is preserved. Sometimes that power is revealed in the simplest of places: a lunchbox. As children, we don’t always have the language to explain why our food feels different or what it represents, but we feel it. I’ve called these “artifacts of identity” because they carry history, belonging and pride.
When I was younger, I only knew the sting of difference: the lunchbox that smelled unlike my classmates’ sandwiches. Of course, parents aren’t over-existentialising these thing when they pack lunches. But, as an adult, I’ve come to see cuisine as memory, lineage, inheritance – connecting us to our past and opening us to one another. Beyond the kitchen, I’ve always believed in listening to that inner nudge: the one that tells you to take a risk, to change direction, to step into uncertainty.
My independence has given me the freedom to make those choices but, at the heart of it, I just want to live a life that I can look back on without regret. If there’s a decision that calls to you because in your gut you know it’s risky but it could also be fantastic, consider it. We often ignore that inner voice at our own cost.
That also means knowing when to speak up and when to hold back. But speaking up is not always about volume; sometimes it’s about strategy, timing and impact. Strength is not just in shouting, it is also in choosing the right moment. Perspective helps.
As a journalist, I’ve trained myself to set aside judgement and focus on the bigger picture. Sometimes that means pushing through discomfort, whether it’s facing the pressures of a television studio or sampling something unfamiliar, like raw deer heart, in the name of work. My duty is to take the audience with me, and if I let hesitation or bias overshadow a story, a dish or a culture, I’ve failed them.
That discipline has carried me through moments of self-consciousness and reminded me that I’m always part of a larger, collective effort. If food has taught me anything, it’s that growth often comes through discomfort. Take sticky rice: for many in the Asian diaspora, its dense, viscid texture is home.
For others, it may seem strange, even confronting. Yet within that simple sensory experience lies memory, culture and joy. To me, it’s an invitation to lean into the unfamiliar, embrace differences and discover connection.
That is what I want people to carry with them: that there is power in opening ourselves to what we don’t yet know. In that openness lies belonging, healing and transformation. These are the things that matter most. I admire that marie claire never shies away from a difficult conversation, because only by telling the hardest stories can we finally step through them.
Guts by Melissa Leong (Murdoch Books, $34.99), is out September 30.
