Women’s Month Profile: Colette Butler

Pledge for Parity

The International Women’s Day (IWD) theme for 2016 is Pledge for Parity. Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement. But progress towards gender parity has slowed in many places.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicted in 2014 that it would take until 2095 to achieve global gender parity. Then one year later in 2015, they estimated that a slowdown in the already glacial pace of progress meant the gender gap wouldn’t close entirely until 2133.

Biography: Colette Butler

I am 20 years old and am studying BA-Law at the University of Pretoria.

I consider myself a passionate feminist and believe in re-educating young people about their misconceptions of sex, consent and gender roles.

The enormous positive response I received after my initial Facebook ask first post inspired me to pursue my goal of raising awareness about the importance of consent and sex positivity. I have since created my own blog.

Q & A

What are your thoughts regarding the IWD theme? What does it mean for you personally?

The theme of gender parity is very important to me. I am privileged to have access to a tertiary education, while many of my fellow South African women are not, but my capability and intelligence is dismissed because of my gender. As a student who needs to look out for career opportunities for the future, I have been taught that in order for me to be taken seriously in a corporate environment I will have to be more “masculine” and avoid getting too “emotional”. I am subjected to gender stereotypes on a daily basis, so the gender gap is not just a theme or topic to discuss for me, it is my lived experience.

According to the WEF gender parity will only be achieved by 2133. What is your response to this statement and how do you contribute to the struggle for gender equality?

To me, the statistics presented are just a call to action. We as a society, and more specifically we as women have to realise that the progress we think we’ve made is not enough, reaching true equality in the year 2133 is not good enough! We have to take a stand against the fact that the world does not recognise the same value in women as it does in men. Personally, I try to fight for gender equality through talking about avoided topics such as sexual consent, gender stereotypes and sex positivity on my blog, as well as refusing to stay silent whenever I experience sexism, whether it’s a joke made amongst my friends or a comment made without much thought.

What are the major obstacles that women face?

Different women face different obstacles, because not all of us have the same lived experiences and all of us live in different places and in different contexts. However, at the root of all of these various problems is one factor that I feel women all over the world have in common, and that is that we are not recognised as full human beings, no matter which way you cut it. We just experience this differently, for example, a woman in the Middle East is not recognised as a full human being when she is forbidden to receive an education, whereas my humanity is not recognised when I get dismissed as a “hysterical woman”.

What were the challenges and obstacles that you personally had to overcome to become the woman that you are today?

I am still a growing developing young woman, but I have faced challenges to get to this point in my journey of being myself unapologetically. Something that has definitely been influential in shaping me as a woman, and especially as a feminist was the reactions to my first Ask First post. I received a lot of positive feedback, but it was the negative comments that actually showed me that I’m not here to feed into people’s ignorance, I’m here to stand up for my beliefs and fight for a better world, no matter how inconvenient or inappropriate others may find it.

What advice do you have for young women today?

Advice for my fellow young women would be to stop apologising – stop holding yourself back from being the best you can be to protect men’s fragile egos. Be whoever you want to be unapologetically, don’t let society define you. Also, we should encourage and empower each other, because if we don’t have each other’s backs, who does?

Anything you would like to add?

An apt quote to reflect on this Women’s Day, especially with the theme of gender parity is: “Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie