Grammatically, this is the difference between the passive and active voice. As I often tell my writing students, the active voice is preferred unless you are trying to hide responsibility. Out of such semantic sensitivity, the word victim has come in for hard times. It is now shameful in some quarters to describe one's life in terms of what is outside one's control. The word has even been used to designate an alleged brand of feminism.
Victim feminism is bad, power feminism is good.
I find it impossible to contemplate a feminism which does not consist of claiming power. Of course, this characterization can also be read as a disguised request for silence. I did not want to tell my husband, either. As strange as this sounds to me now, I had to be persuaded to call him at the photography workshop in Vermont. I argued against it, as I recall, on the basis that he would know sooner or later, but if I called him right away he would have to leave the workshop he had looked forward to for so long.