In June, JCG had the honour of welcoming Laura Bates, the acclaimed feminist writer, speaker and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project for a series of workshops with staff and students and a public talk led by our IDEA prefects, Christa and Georgia.
by Christa & Georgia - IDEA PREFECTS, YEAR 12
It was a pleasure having Laura Bates speak to different year groups and educate us about change, limitations for women due to sexism, and underlying gender stereotypes that cause problems in later life for many people.
After an amazing two days with Laura, and hearing her tremendous knowledge in the field of sexism, we had the chance to interview her about her career, and some important pointers that she’d like us to know. Here are some of her answers.
At what point did you decide to go down this career route and what may have influenced you to take the initiative to speak up?
I don’t think I realised it was a career when I first started talking about it, it just kind of snowballed in a way that I hadn’t really anticipated. I knew I wanted to speak out about it in 2012 when I first started talking to other women and girls. Hearing their experience was really overwhelming and made me realise just how much women were suffering everyday and that no one really knew about it. I was just going to set up a small website and carry on with my life. I had no idea it would end up then collecting this huge data set of sexism from people of different ages and backgrounds. Being able to use that data to create real world change was crucial.
How do you think schools and parents can help prevent or mitigate gender inequality issues?
I think schools need to do it, not just in sex and relationships education, but in the whole ethos of the school taking a zero tolerance approach to sexism, sexual harassment and sexual abuse, having really clear policies to that effect and having male senior staff really involved as well in making it clear it’s everybody’s problem. For parents, when children are younger, it’s about thinking about gender stereotyping and making sure they’re being offered a really wide range of toys, books, clothing, and not just assume they will automatically want the stereotypical thing that might be associated with them, their sex, by our society. It’s important for both school and parents to provide space for safe supportive conversations and communication about these issues.
What advice would you give to students who want to challenge sexism in their school?
Don’t try and do it alone, there are other people who can help and it’s much more fun and less scary to do it as part of a team. I would say talk to the students at JCG who have set up an incredible movement called ‘She’s The Moment’, and I would also say bring pizza or cake because people can feel nervous talking about this stuff, and genuinely if you have food at your first meeting you’ll get a lot more people through the door and then they will realise it’s not as scary as it sound!
Laura also shared insights from her new book ‘The New Age of Sexism’. She discussed the extent to which AI is being used to ‘increase productivity’ and ‘discriminate actively against women and marginalised groups’ whereby online misogyny and social media need to be regulated ‘at the beginning, not trying to do it retroactively when it’s too late’.
“I find in my line of work that if I don’t have rigorous statistics and facts to back up what I’m saying nobody believes me either because they are men who don’t want to listen or because the problem is so shockingly huge in a world that doesn’t think it even exists.”
We thank Laura for coming to JCG and giving us and many others the opportunity to think about and talk about sexism, and how we can really challenge it in our own lives.
