Anelile Dlamini – Gibixego is a Pietermaritzburg-born author, mother and scientist. Anelile completed a Bachelor of Science in microbiology and cellular biology in 2011 from the University of Kwa Zulu Natal and an Honours degree in environmental science at North-West University in 2017. In her day time, she is a researcher and environmental activist.

Since moving to Johannesburg in 2015, she has published her debut novel iGoli Dreams. She became a network builder, has published opinion pieces, spoken conferences and earns the title “motivational speaker”.

She has contributed for publications like Living While Feminist, Ayana Magazine, Daily Maverick, Imbawula, Live Literature Market and My Black Matters. Alongside these, she has presented at research conferences like the Water Show South Africa, Indlulamithi Scenarios and 25 Years of Democracy conference.

Her passionate activism is against gender-based violence and discrimination. She identifies herself as an eco-feminist which embodies the oppression of nature within the oppression of women.

In her piece in Living While Feminist called Feminism In the Church, Anelile writes about her experience of becoming a mother within her faith, and makes her argument for why Jesus is a feminist. She says in that piece:

“I had seen the structural sexism in my church and partaken in its rituals. After coming across some feminist literature, books, novels, and speeches, I realised that Christianity has portrayed feminism as an enemy state, but that was not the case. In my journey to becoming the catholic ecofeminist that I am today, I played with the idea that Jesus himself was feminist.”