The story of an extraordinary woman: Colette

This is an article by a student of 1st of ESO B, Ariadna Gónzalez, for the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women:

The story starts with a little girl called Colette. One day, her family went through some bad moments, so she became poor and she had to live without many of the pleasures and luxuries she had been used to.

When she grew up, she met a man called Henry Gauthier-Villars, most well-known as Willy. Colette was amazed by him, (even though he was almost 20 years older than her), she found something special in him. He was a worldly man, and also a CEO of a company that was known around the world because of the books he”wrote”.  So she finally married him and they moved to the city Colette always wanted to live in: Paris. Their marriage wasn’t that exciting, it was a normal marriage, until one day, in which Willy asked Colette to write a book. At the beginning she refused to do it, but Willy ended up convincing her that she could write an amazing book about her childhood, and so she did.

When she started, she had no idea about what to write. First she thought about a character, whose name was Claudine, and then of a place such as a school. Eventually, she wrote a whole book about her. When she ended, she wasn’t sure enough if Willy would like it, but when she showed him, he loved it! He immediately said that he would put that book on sale. When the book was on sale, Colette didn’t care that much. One day, Willy left his copy on one table, and when she saw the author, instead of saying “by Colette”, it said “by Willy”. So she asked her husband about that, and his answer was: “You won’t be accepted, people are not used to seeing a woman as a writer”. Ok, we need to stop here for a moment, THAT’S REALLY CoNtEmPtUouS! 

Well, let’s move on, the book had such success that Willy asked Colette to write another part of the book. Of course, she said no, but Willy forced her to do it, locking her in a room with a pen and paper. So, when she ended, her husband let her out of the room. When the second book was published, of course it said  that the author was Willy. 

Her last three books became a bestseller. Of course, Willy was the author (wow! What a surprise…) and Colette was ABSOLUTELY DONE with him, so one day she took some clothes and she left her husband. 

When she was living in the streets of Paris, alone, it was difficult for her to find a nice job. She had money to buy some food, but nothing else (with that I mean: No clothes, No jewelry, NOTHING) but then she found a job in a theatre as a screenwriter. She wrote scripts for a lot of plays! Also, she found another love, whose name was Henry Jouvenel. He was the editor of one newspaper (Le Matin) and he gave her a job as a journalist, and he didn’t care that she wrote her name in the articles she wrote! She became famous. Someone asked her to write the script for a movie called Gigi that became famous worldwide! Also, they gave her a Novel Prize®️ in literature and people didn’t care that she was a woman! She was finally free!

So, now that we are over with this article, I just wanted to give my point of view. The story was really interesting, and it also shows some of  the pains and struggles of being a woman during those days. And even if that wasn’t well seen, Colette wrote anyway. And that’s a great goal!

This story was also a way to show women that we can do the same thing as men, we can say the same things,  and that women have the same rights.

And now, a question for all men, how would you have felt if you were Colette?  

Well, see you with another great article!

Ariadna