To be a kept woman in a gangland life means you have to accept a set of morals that you never imagined you ever could. You trade criminal records for expensive leather chairs; you exchange your right to be a free-thinking good woman for top of the range white goods. Stolen luxury items and other women's jewellery become the pay-offs for keeping your mouth shut. This kind of bargaining has affected me so much that to this day I hate gold and diamonds and I have vowed to work for every single item I own. I don't even wear my wedding ring.

Even our sexuality didn't belong to us. It was prized and revered and paraded by the men because ultimately it belonged to them, not us. To have sex with your enemy's wife was the best weapon a man could have, and females became the bullets, sexual cluster bombs and secret arsenal of men who neither respected women nor knew how to. I knew women who were passed around the men like some unspoken currency. This made my husband and I determined to raise our daughter with a deep sense of confidence and an ability to stand by her own choices. Her sexuality would be hers to own, not someone else's to manipulate.

Living under the cloak of violence and crime can make a woman untrusting of her own community. Men would make enemies and the women had to be updated on who they could fraternise with. Men decided on the circle of friends that a woman could move among and, having been one of those women, I know from experience that it can harm your ability to make your own informed choices.

Soon after I got married, I quickly realised that there were people I had to avoid and situations where I would never be allowed to ask questions. Silence and acceptance were part of my marriage vows. Gangland rules state that only men rise to the top of their world; women are often regarded as second class citizens. But no woman I knew had any interest in gaining a foothold in turf wars or gun crime. We all wanted a peaceful life, if perhaps not a quiet one. What woman would want her sons to live a life of fear and antagonism the way her father did?

My marriage was strained by this constant undertow of violence and gang-related crime and the pressure made us both become angry and violent to each other. At home, my husband became difficult to live with; in the world outside, I saw men inflict such violence on other men that the torment of witnessing it still lives within me. Our daughter was raised in that atmosphere until finally, in 1994, my husband and I were found in his father's house with a collection of guns and weapons. We were put in prison overnight. This shock made us reassess our values, so we left the family, a decision we have never regretted.

Looking back, it was like living in a war zone, but at least we managed to persuade ourselves we were living in a fair and equal war zone. It seemed as if the role of the women in the family was to deal with the issues that the men created.

I recall standing in the wash-house as a young newly-wed, watching a wee woman soak the blood-drenched towels that had been wrapped around her son's head. She let me scrub the towels on my washing board and accepted my help in deathly silence, both of us acknowledging that we had nothing to do with what the men did. We stuck together. The boy had been beaten senseless by my husband's family. Her sadness has stained my soul forever.

My mother was murdered by her violent boyfriend. The impact of her death and the ease with which I accepted that level of violence as a normal part of my life have shaped me, not only as a woman but in my career as a writer and comedian. "If I can't be an inspiration as a mother, then use me as a dire warning," she once told me. I was 15 years old, unaware that her words would resonate throughout my life and make me question my own abilities as a mother.

My husband and I taught our daughter that to respect herself and the people around her is of the utmost importance. She in turn has a hugely generous heart and her compassion for humanity is a huge testimony to us. My daughter was raised to believe in herself and that she should never need a man to supply her with anything but respect and love. Ultimately, in a life like mine, you have no choice but to become a fierce guardian of your children. When the men are too busy strutting their egos, you are the one who makes sure the kids' homework is done. You are the one who smothers them with love. Yet somehow, sadly, you still silently hand down the deadly fear of revenge on to your children without even knowing that you're doing it.

There is an endlessly repeating cycle of poverty, anger and disrespect that is rife in our world. It keeps our confidence down and our aspirations low and it has to stop somewhere. All it takes is to look clearly at the world you live in and to stand up for what you believe in. Raising my daughter in such a male-dominated environment was very difficult for me. I needed her to know that I am not the woman my mother was and she need never be the woman I am. It was up to my husband and I to allow our child the freedom to explore her own choices without the outside influence of greed and crime, to break that endless cycle.

My mother died young when she was 47 years old. I recently reached that age and I have now been alive for longer than she was. This was a huge turning point for me. I realise that mothers can, without meaning to, hand down feelings of failure and fear as well as a silent insinuation that sex can be traded for love or material prizes. To teach self respect, self reliance and the confidence to know that your sexuality is your own gift and not something to trade is the best thing a mother can pass on to her daughter. I personally believe I have done this for my girl and it makes me proud to know that I've achieved it. I know my mother would be grateful.

Janey Godley was born in the east end of Glasgow and for 14 years she ran a pub in the Calton area of the city. Now a celebrated writer and stand-up comedian, her autobiography Handstands in the Dark is published by Ebury Press.