Laura Bates set up The Everyday Sexism Project, which aims to highlight and combat gender imbalances, following a succession of events within a weeks period, a period she states changed her life.
During this TEDx Talk, posted just hours ago onto YouTube, Laura conveys powerfully, through personal experience and knowledge that she has gained from extensive research, just how important it is for us to discuss sexism faced by ordinary women, in ordinary places on a daily basis.
Hoping the site would build a sense of solidarity, Laura estimated that only a handful of women would engage and share their story. In just 18 months, 50,000 people, from all ethnic origins, minorities, and genders, from all over the globe added stories.
Categorising sexism into sections, Laura addresses the inequalities in the government, education, and the workplace in Britain.
Only 10 out of the 2,300 artworks in the national gallery are by women. Fewer than one-in-ten of engineers are female. And in the media, one fifth of women write front page articles, with 84% dominated male experts and issues.
The poignant defining moment of the talk comes when Sarah moved onto the section of crime.
“In the UK over two women a week are killed by a current or former partner, there’s a phone call to the police every minute about domestic violence, every six or seven minutes a women is raped.”
“World wide one-in-three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime,” she added.
Laura touches on just a few of the stories she has encountered since beginning her project.
“You look prettier when you shut up,” one woman writes.
Laura hopes the site will help people contribute to the cultural shift in attitudes towards women and initiate unique and individual ways of standing up against everyday sexism.
Follow Everyday Sexism on Twitter or share an experience of your own on the site here.
Video via YouTube/TEDxTalks
