Women in Westminster: In Conversation With Dawn Butler MP
When first elected in 2005, Dawn Butler became only the third Black woman to become an MP. She has since spoken out about the misogyny and racism she encountered upon entering the Commons. As part of our Women in Westminster series, we sat down with Butler to learn why she believes that society needs to put fairness first
A year after becoming an MP, Dawn Butler was having lunch on the terrace of the House of Commons when a Conservative former minister challenged her right to be there. He told her that the terrace was for members only.
Butler told Women in Westminster that she believes his remarks were underpinned by an ingrained set of assumptions about what an MP should, or perhaps should not, look like.
“His response was, ‘She's upset because we didn't recognise her’” Butler tells Women in Westminster as she recounts the incident. “When I thought about it, years later actually, he should have recognised me after all there were only two Black female MPs, so surely we stood out? Or so you would have thought.”
Compared to some MPs, Butler’s path to the Commons was not straightforward. She began her career as a computer programmer before moving into roles that addressed social justice, including serving as an officer for the GMB Union and advising the Mayor of London on employment issues.
Following two unsuccessful attempts to become a candidate for the Labour Party, Butler was eventually selected to contest Brent South in 2005, a seat that she won. The challenges she encountered along the way have resulted in her never taking the role of representing her constituents for granted.
“It was emotional for me walking into the Commons as an MP for the first time,” she tells us, reflecting on her first day as a parliamentarian. “I remember just feeling so proud that I made it against the odds. I thought that the hardest battle was behind me. I'm in Parliament now and I'm here to represent my constituents and do the best for them.”
However, Butler quickly realised that getting into the Commons was far from the end of the challenges she faced. Once in the House, she encountered ingrained sexism and racism that she found both disheartening and surprising.
“The first time, I experienced racism in Parliament it was really sad because I felt like I'd let my guard down,” she tells us. “I was expecting everybody to be on the same page. I wasn't expecting any racist abuse. But I was only one of two Black female MPs at the time. When you look at it in those terms, it was probably naive of me.”
Butler’s role as a trailblazer for Black women in UK politics is curiously unacknowledged. Only Diane Abbott and Oona King preceded her as Black female MPs and Butler herself believes that her achievements are often underplayed.
“I was the first Black woman to stand at the Despatch Box as a government minister,” she tells us. “I made history and it’s almost like nobody wants to remember that history. And you think, ‘I wonder why that is?’”
For Butler, the downplaying of the achievements of Black women is certainly not unique to her. Rather it is part of a deeper societal pattern that she has both experienced and witnessed throughout her lifetime. Throughout our conversation, she demonstrates a nuanced and thoughtful understanding of how power operates and the subtle ways it pushes some people and voices to the sidelines.
“People tend to critique Black women, a lot more harshly than they critique other women,” she tells us. “This isn't a new phenomenon. It happens all of the time. It's unfair and it's exhausting.”
That culture of critique is pinpointed by Butler as particularly insidious, undermining achievements and applying a different set of criteria when judging the successes of Black women.
That theme of “fairness” is one that Butler frequently returns to during our sit-down conversation. Butler is acutely aware that the racism she has encountered as an MP is just one part of a much broader set of systemic barriers that Black women face across society.
“Fundamentally, at the heart of all of this is fairness,” she tells us. “All we want is a fair opportunity. If people were fair, that would make our lives a little bit easier.”
And the former minister for young citizens and youth engagement’s commitment to fairness extends far beyond Westminster. For instance, she has campaigned relentlessly to improve health outcomes for communities that are disadvantaged due to processes and structures that do not always reflect their specific needs.
Butler was herself diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 and has experienced firsthand the way that patient care pathways are often shaped by the assumptions of providers. Her advocacy has been instrumental in highlighting disparities in healthcare and encouraging women to seek earlier diagnosis and treatment.
“When you have a structure that relies on measures that are not relevant to specific groups then the outcomes for those groups are going to be disproportionately poor,” she explains. “Black women are five times more likely to die from giving birth than their white counterparts. They are twice as likely to die of breast cancer. I mean, that is very stark.”
Highlighting and addressing those deep inequalities is something that Butler remains utterly committed to doing. The MP thinks deeply and critically about the causes and impacts of inequality and injustice and always returns to her central theme, that tackling systemic issues requires systemic solutions.
“Of course, part of it is getting rid of the people who are overtly racist or misogynistic or sexist, but if you've got a system that encourages misogynistic behaviour then it doesn't matter if you get rid of the individual,” she says. “That system means that you're never going to change what happens next.”
That commitment to driving change has been a hallmark of Butler’s career to date, and there is no sign that is going to change any time soon. But the one thing she refuses to change is herself.
"I've been accused of smiling too much and not smiling enough, of being not authentic or too authentic,” she observes. “I've been around long enough now to just embrace who I am. I'm not going to dim my light or change to suit anybody else.”
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