I Am She x Belle Butler

Is it a personal project? Is it a passionate crusade? Is it a demand for action? IT is all of these things and SHE is Belle Butler, born of a desire to reach the right people with this timely message. Belle's new single I Am She is a call to hugging-arms for disparities in gender equality, exposed by the #MeToo movement and protests earlier this year, with still so much work to do.

Who is Belle Butler?

A multi-tasking/mum/musician/writer/photographer/partner/friend/daughter/chook-n-guinea-pig-carer/people-watcher/daydreamer/veggie-patch-wrangler. Bliss is staring out the car window on a long road trip; a new song 'arriving' unexpectedly; hanging out with characters in fictional worlds; getting cozy with a book in bed; coming in from the cold; salsa dancing; falling asleep in the sunshine; bush-walks; hot-springs; kiddy laughter; kiddy cuddles; family camping trips; and backyard fires.

So many hats – assuming MUM is at the top of the list, what's the next most important to you?

Mumming it' and family in general definitely occupy most of my time. All of my creative stuff is squeezed into the margins. I'd say music and writing battle each other out for next spot on the priority list. I really couldn't say which one is more important. They serve different functions in terms of being outlets - music is more of a feelings or emotions outlet, while writing lends itself to exploring more nuanced, complex and lengthy concepts. But often I find that I explore similar themes across all my chosen art forms. I also like to mix-n-match them… like writing fiction to go with real-life photographs for instance. Or writing songs from the perspective of one of my characters.

I Am She is a car and Belle Butler (the artist, not the person) is any actor in history, who's driving what type of vehicle?

Whoa, you're asking someone who takes very little interest in cars and rarely remembers the name of an actor…. But, since you're asking, I'd say Charlize Theron and she's riding a bicycle at night wearing whatever she wants. (I know, it's not a car…)

Is it easier to write with a… mission statement, or more does that have its own challenges?

I don't think I've ever written with a mission statement. Things just come from somewhere and then they are there looking back at me. In the case of I Am She, the music was there for a few years, but I couldn't find the right lyrics to go with it. Then about two years ago I had this very minor-in-the-scheme-of-things misogynistic name-calling incident happen, and suddenly the lyrics came in a rush. The incident had simply triggered a flood of memories for me… memories and feelings of sadness and anger I had been holding onto about my own and other women's experiences of misogyny and gender-based abuse. It was actually a very inopportune time for the lyrics to arrive. My washing machine had broken so I was running back and forth between my house and a friend's house up the street with loads of washing while our kids played together. I kept getting one or a few lines of the song in my head at a time, so I'd rush home and take a little longer getting the washing while I tried out each line and wrote it all down.

I suppose people might think I wrote this song in response to the March4Justice rallies earlier this year. That's okay if they do - it would certainly be sufficient inspiration for it! But in fact, I wonder if there has simply been an undercurrent of collective rage swelling among us for some years now. I tapped into it because of my own personal experiences at a time that many of us realised we've just had enough.

Is singer-songwriter a frustrating term for you?

Haha, yeah it kind of is! But then, I never really know how to define my sound, so maybe the vagueness of it is makes it the perfect fit.

How far has feminism come in your lifetime? & what art piece/song has been the most significant in spreading that awareness?

In some circles (white women in in the right places), feminism has come a very long way. But that only represents a fraction of society, and even so, privileged white women still have pay gaps, workplace discrimination and sexual harassment and abuse to contend with. Hmmm, I don't know that mainstream culture has actually come that far in my lifetime.

As for feminism during my lifetime, I think the #MeToo movement will go down as a significant and necessary shift in focus, and we are now starting to talk more and more about intersectional feminism, which is hopefully a sign that at least the conversation is becoming more inclusive. My concern is that despite the conversations being had, the necessary action to enact change seems slow to follow. The #MeToo movement took off in 2017. Seems like we are now in round 2 of the #MeToo movement here in Australia, with tens of thousands marching earlier this year because the they are still fed up with gender-based violence. And many of the older women in the protesting at those rallies bemoaned the fact that so little had changed in their lifetimes.

Now, feminist art. I wouldn't say I have extensive knowledge of the genre, but there's the ubiquitous 'We Can Do It' image, originally used to get women to join the workforce during WW2, later adopted by the feminist movement. Then there's The Dinner Party, an installation by Judy Chicago, which honours significant women in history. And of course Helen Reddy's, I Am Woman, significant of its time and still so relevant today. It was chanted at the March4Justice rallies by hundreds, probably thousands, earlier this year.

Why is I Am She so important to you?

I am not a natural activist. I spent all those uni years admiring my friends who just seemed to have a knack for activism… and who subsequently have gone on to do amazing things. I was always there, very happy to add another voice to the collective, but I never really trusted what I had to say and my voice felt too quiet, too wobbly, to be heard all on its own.

Now I simply feel I have no choice. When you get into your 30s as a woman I think you start to take stock of all the experiences you somehow managed to survive and you start to understand why you have that feeling in your chest that won't ever quite go away. I wrote and recorded this song in response to my own experiences, and importantly, in response to the experiences of other women - the disgusting treatment of Julia Gillard while she was our Prime Minister, the name-calling of many other women in politics, the tragic rape and murder of Jill Meagher and countless others we see on the news, the atrocious stats on domestic violence, the stories I have heard from all the women in my life.

This song will never be enough to encompass all of that, but it is my way of acknowledging these experiences, accepting that they will remain a part of us, that they will probably continue to affect and influence us for the rest of our lives, but that we refuse to let them destroy us.

Also, I have kids! How can I just carry on saying nothing when I know what world I'm sending them into?

Belle Butler's debut single I Am She is available for purchase from 17 September!

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