This study examines the transition from silence to public speech in the context of breast cancer in Côte d’Ivoire, analysing the mechanisms of destigmatisation and the dynamics of collective meaning-making. The central issue concerns the social and cultural regulation of women’s discourse and its impact on the visibility and social representation of illness. The research interrogates the collective and symbolic strategies through which women negotiate their identities, recalibrate the boundaries between the intimate and the public sphere, and transform the social gaze directed at their embodied experiences. Grounded in a qualitative methodology combining narrative interviews and direct observation, the analysis reveals that the discursive articulation of the intimate catalyses solidarity, self-affirmation, and bodily reappropriation. The discussion highlights the constitutive tension between stigmatisation, female subjectivation, and self-determination, demonstrating how collective speech operates as a vector of symbolic emancipation and identity reconfiguration. In conclusion, shared narration emerges as a lever for social transformation, simultaneously producing new forms of visibility and recognition for women confronting illness.