Ayanda Borotho won't stand for women being treated as 'less human'

When one is at the forefront of a conversation that hasn't always been welcomed by society, they are bound to meet some adversity along the way but actress Ayanda Borotho is not prepared to back down, no matter what.

In an interview with TshisaLIVE, Ayanda made it clear that as long as women don't get the equal treatment they deserve in all spheres of life, she would use her voice to stir things up and challenge the status quo.

“My voice is my strongest asset. It will continue to challenge the status quo and for as long as women and children are less human than the average human, I will never stop.”

The author of Unbecoming To Become, explained that she was intending on using her journey of rediscovering and redefining herself to help her peers do the same. But more than that, she hoped that the younger generation of women would benefit from such conversations and be spared from what her peers have had to endure.

The actress also revealed that it was her Isibaya character, Phumemele, who stirred up her desire to introspect and to truly understand the woman she is within a largely patriarchal world. The more she looked at her voiceless character, the more she began to ask questions and challenge stereotypes.

“In some ways, I think playing a character on Isibaya who was in a polygamous marriage where she had no voice, made me realise the dynamics of our worlds may differ but the parallels are too similar. Educated women like me think being liberated is being civilised or living a better life. But once I started to deeply introspect I realised it doesn’t matter whether you are a rural woman or the president’s wife, our dynamics are the same. Women everywhere have never defined their own narrative. We simply survive the patriarchal narrative. So maybe I can say my activism started the day I began writing my book,” Ayanda said.

Recently, Ayanda has started an Instagram series with her teenage daughter to unpack things such as the existing standard of beauty. While she still continues to meet people that are against her mission and it's approach, many of her followers have nothing but admiration for the actress.