"Ultimately, if Greer is saying we need to take rape less seriously, she neednt worry … society is already doing a pretty great job of that all by itself."
Laura Carolyn Bates is an English feminist writer. She founded the Everyday Sexism Project website in April 2012. Her first book, Everyday Sexism, was published in 2014.
"[Misogynistic and sexist attitudes during her career as an actor] I asked other women if theyd experienced attitudes of this sort. I found myself thinking back about all the incidents Id never really thought twice about and saying, "Oh, my God, this is huge. Why am I putting up with it?" I couldnt believe how many of these women had hundreds of stories."
"[On a couples engagement] As for the man asking "permission" from the brides father, one friend expressed my thoughts exactly: "If Im going to get married, I sure as hell want to be the first to know about it."
"I dont think someone in a predatory position, behaving in an abhorrent way towards young girls, would have looked at the Sun and thought there was nothing wrong with their behaviour, but they would have looked at it and thought: "I’m going to get away with it."
"[The irony defence of misogynistic material] Previously, you got people to engage because its just jokes. Now, if its being watched 11.4bn times, it doesnt have to be a joke any more, because the strength is in numbers."
"[On changing surnames on marriage] We wrangled back and forth over this – he would have been happy to take my surname, but already had a friend with the identical name. Would that be weird? We dismissed double barrels. We considered the new trend for combining the two names into a hybrid – this worked for friends with the surnames Sand and Smith (giving them the magical-sounding Sandsmith). But neither Baylor nor Tates has quite the same romantic ring. Of course, the simple thing is to keep ones own name and get on with it. But for me there was something meaningful about making a shift in our official identities. Eventually, my fiance came up with a simple solution: wed each take the others surname as an extra middle name, leaving our surnames unchanged. Problem solved. (Until, as my mum pointed out, we might have to think about what surname to use for any children, but hey, well need something to talk about once were married.)"
"[Definition by Bates of Everyday Sexism as published om the project website in 2014] To prove how the steady drip-drip-drip of sexism and sexualisation and objectification is connected to the assumption of ownership and control over women’s bodies, and how the background noise of harassment and disrespect connects to the assertion of power that is violence and rape."